


A Different Shade of Green

by SherlockMalfoy



Series: Grid Links [3]
Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Crossover, Gen, Love/Hate Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-04-25 02:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14369244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockMalfoy/pseuds/SherlockMalfoy
Summary: Sent to another reality six months after the Legends War, Tommy and Kimberly spend 3 years under fake names, slowly losing faith that they will ever get back home. That is, until one fateful day when a giant golden monster terrorizes the Angel Grove of their adopted reality and five multi-colored heroes with a giant robot bitch-slap a very different Rita Repulsa into space.But when the haunting melody drifts through the air and the mighty Dragonzord roars in the dead of night, the displaced veterans learn how truly similar this world is to their own.Sequel to "Hang Up The Spandex (But don't pack it away just yet).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kim = 2017 Movie Kimberly  
> Kimberly = Grid Links Kimberly from "Hang up the Spandex" and "Son of Maligore".

"So... this world has Power Rangers after all," he said a week later as they were sitting across the street from the destroyed Krispy Kreme, each with a McDonald's breakfast sandwich and a coffee in hand.

"Shut up Tommy," she muttered when the bus pulled up and they climbed the steps up. Kim deposited enough money for them both, snatching the two 24 hour tickets as they made their way to empty seats.

And so began another month of pretending to be Mr. and Mrs. Park, over qualified science teacher and assistant librarian at Angel Grove High School.

**o0o**

It was a month since they fought and beat back Rita. But it seemed like the uglies never stopped pouring in. Every other day it was one thing or another. And Trini, for one, was sick and tired of it. Balancing her normal life with the bad-ass one she secretly had, that is. If given the choice, she'd be a Ranger full time, no questions asked.

She hated library study hall. Not only did they have to do their work, they had to be quiet while doing it. Trini tapped her pencil on the open pages of her algebra book with a frown. "You guys think Dr. Park hates his wife?" she asked, watching the assistant librarian and their science teacher step out of the office in the back of the library, both looking a lot angrier than when they'd gone in.

"Maybe she's stepping out on him or somethin," Zack said, watching as well. "I mean look at her. Mrs. Park is rockin that bod. Dr. Park's what, a four? He doesn't deserve a fine 10 like that."

Billy sighed. "Guys, are you going to let me help you with your homework or not? Because with all the fighting we've been doing I don't have time to do your homework for you anymore."

Jason patted his friend on the shoulder. "Maybe they'll start listening when they realize they'll be stuck here another year while you, me, and Kim go off to college."

"IF we go," Kim complained. "I mean, we can't exactly leave Angel Grove. How in the world are we going to save the world if we're hundreds of miles away?"

"My mom says," Billy starts enthusiastically, "that community college is just as good as a four year school, and cheaper, too. We could all go to Angel Grove Community College together and-"

"As great as that sounds and all," Zack said, "There's no way I'll get in. Forget my grades. I can't even afford a new dirt bike let alone college."

"Well, it's too late to apply for some scholarships now, but if you're willing to wait to start in the spring I can help you fill out all the forms and-"

"I really think Mrs. Park just wants to slap him. Look at him. He has such a slappable face," Trini said, interrupting their blue friend's ramble. "I wonder what they were fighting about this time."

Jason shrugged, noticing their science teacher heading their way. He grabbed his English book and pretended to be reading. The last thing he needed was more homework on top of his detentions and special Saturday delinquents school.

**o0o**

He was never so glad to be back at their apartment. Some days he forgets why they didn't try to make things work when it was obvious they were stuck here in this weird bizarro version of home. Other times... he feels guilty even considering it when he keeps his wedding ring on a chain around his neck, hidden beneath his shirt with his half of a mystical arrowhead. Then he remembers how much they can't stand each other now and is actually grateful she sent him that letter from Paris.

Faking their paperwork in this world wasn't too hard once he got his hands on a computer. He didn't make fast friends with Hayley for nothing. And he certainly paid attention when she gave him crash courses on certain things that made it easier for helping different alien Rangers make Earth their new home.

When she came home after dark, she found him sitting on the couch watching TV. Not really watching TV, more flipping through the channels boredly.

"Have you been sitting there all evening?"

"No. I graded some papers an hour ago. And took a shower."

"You know what I mean."

"No, Kim. I've actually been working on trying to find a power source for that stupid machine. The only thing that shows up on the scanner is something you won't let me go look into."

"We watched this world's Rita and Goldar tear apart the Krispy Kreme trying to get to that energy source you found. And we watched the Power Rangers bitch-slap their Rita into space to protect it. I think it's safe to say we can't consider it an option."

"I'm not saying we go and steal the damn thing. We just go up to the kids and ask them if we can borrow it."

"Yeah, that's a great idea," she mutters, throwing her sweater over the back of the recliner as she turns to go to the kitchen for a drink. "And how exactly do you think that'll go? Hi kids, we're power rangers from another dimension who've been stuck here for three years and we'd really like to get home. Mind if we take your special crystal and shatter it so we can mine it for energy we need to nip on back home? Yeah. Not going to happen."

Tommy was about to complain when the world decided to take that moment to shake.

Outside, in the city, there was a massive roar very much unlike what they had heard from Goldar or the alien-like Megazord they'd photographed with their phones. Tommy looked towards the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room of their three bedroom apartment.

"Did that sound like-" Kim started

"A giant lizard?" Tommy finished.

Kimberly quickly rounded the bar and joined Tommy on the balcony, staring out into the city as the world continued to shake. Without walls and glass separating them from the sound, they could clearly hear a very familiar, very haunting melody in the air accompanying the roars of the beast that had risen from the depths of the bay.

"Shit," they said in unison as they watched this world's mighty Dragonzord storm through down town.

"You think there's a powerful energy source hidden under the McDonalds?" Kim asked.

**o0o**

"What the hell WAS that thing?!"

They were lucky. This time.

They watched the replay of the battle the night before, each of them standing in their footprint stations around the hologram playing in the center.

"That was the Dragonzord," Alpha 5 said. "Rita's personal tank."

"What?"

"Well you didn't think the Green one of you wouldn’t have a zord, too. Of course Rita had one! She just preferred Goldar."

"So you're saying she gave her power coin to someone? I thought Jason just slapped her into space!"

"Great," Kim muttered. "That's all we need. Another psycho in green running around."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... yeah. They totally picked "Park" as their fake surnames because of Adam. I'd just watched "Once a Ranger" again right before sitting down to start on this story so, blame that.


	2. Chapter 2

It was one of their better days. The days they could pretend things had played out differently. There hadn't been any attacks since the night the bizarro Dragonzord had stormed through town, announcing the arrival of this world's Green Ranger.

"You think when this is over, they'll have a white one like we did?" Kimberly muses over her milkshake. It's a lazy Sunday. They haven't fought in nearly four days. Anyone that looked at them in this moment might mistake them for a happily married couple in their late thirties, early forties. Not the slightly bitter exes they really were.

Though to be fair, most of their fighting came from being stranded for three years away from their friends and family, and for once was no direct fault of Tommy Oliver's thank you very much. And things had been looking up for repairing their friendship after the Mega War, too. Green and Pink, fighting side by side again like old times. But even then, they had their friends as buffers. Here the two were a pair of raw nerves rubbing each other the wrong way.

But not today though. Today they were Mr. and Mrs. Park, out for a nice Sunday evening at a casual dining restaurant in Angel Grove. The place was slightly busier than normal because, well, most of downtown was once again trashed.

Contractors and architects are going to love this town for the next few years. Monster attacks are cash cows.

"I don't really know," Tommy replied, dragging a few sweet potato fries through ketchup. "Their powers are completely different from what ours were. And the timeline's way different, too. I did some checking when we were creating our cover. This Kimberly Hart chose cheerleading over gymnastics."

"Yeah? Well, I've got one better, Thomas," Kimberly said with a smirk, using her straw to stir her milkshake with a mischievous glint in her eye. "Oliver was sent to the library to get some DVDs for remedial social studies."

"Let me guess. Lots of green, right?"

"Her teacher made her put on a sweater because every boy in a fifty foot radius couldn't help but notice Miss Oliver likes to shop at Victoria Secret."

"Oh God..." he groaned, slouching in his chair and pushing his plate forward a bit, losing his appetite. "Jase will never let me hear the end of this."

Kimberly hummed devilishly. "Yeah... Poor guy just about tripped over himself to help the girl with the overwhelming burden of three light weight DVD cases and just about caused his girlfriend to slap him."

"No... No. They're not-"

"Oh yes. Pink and Red," she said. "There. Now you both will have something to tease each other about when we get home."

When they get home.

Days like today, the lazy Sundays, they often take comfort in the false hopes of pretend.

**o0o**

"Jason, look out!"

"Trini get down!"

It happened too fast.

One minute they were waiting in line at the movies. Taking advantage of the relative peace that a break in monster attacks had given them. They'd even made sure to pick a time where the movie would end before seven, with enough time for Jason to run back home before his parents got there. They at least had to keep up the pretense that he was following court orders.

The next - well, there was a green heel digging into his rib cage, cracking the red armor that had become a second skin to him.

A flash of Pink. Green went down and Jason could breathe just a little bit easier again.

The two women were rolling, Kim refusing to let her escape again.

A scream. Kim's arm was broken. A yellow blast and a mighty howl and Green staggered back. She had a sword - a dagger.

Jason acted without thinking. He had his energy sword up and jumped in the way, blocking the blade before it could come crashing down to deliver the fatal blow.

"Out of my way, Red Ranger," Green snarled pushing harder as Blue came up behind. Yellow dragged Pink out from behind Jason. Jason tossed out some banter, keeping Green's attention focused squarely on him.

Billy nearly made it before Green spun, pushing Jason back and caught Billy in the leg behind the knee.

"Zack! Get Kim outta here!" Jason ordered as he jumped in the way of Green's blade again, his energy sword sparking with the force it took to keep Green from pushing forward.

When Blue fell, Yellow picked up the small blinking device he'd been attempting to put on Green's back. She was careful, hopping from side to side so she wouldn't be seen. Just as she leapt forward with all the grace of a large Sabertooth cat, slapping the device onto the Green Ranger's back, Green broke with Jason and turned, a spinning kick to Trini's head, cracking her helmet and causing it to retract with the force of the blow.

"No! Trini!"

Green snarled at them, backing away before turning to leap into the air. "Next time, you won't be so lucky, Rangers!" she shouted before she disappeared into the coming twilight.

Hiding in the restaurant across the street, the citizens of Angel Grove who had been enjoying a pleasant Sunday evening out gave a collective sigh of relief when the villainous Green Ranger had left. A high school assistant librarian looked at the science teacher who had ducked below the window with her. Their position chosen so they could watch the fight that had broken out at the movie theater. The science teacher shook his head and lowered his eyes.

**o0o**

"That's kind of adorable," Kimberly said, watching the kids at the lunch table in the corner, crowded around a phone. "They made an app to track the Green Ranger."

"That... actually would have been very helpful for you guys back in the day."

"You think they'll notice who it is today? I mean, if that thing they slapped on her back was what I think it was, then they might notice that someone's not in school today."

"If that coin is anything like what mine used to be, this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better," Tommy muttered, picking at his lunch. "Remind me why I'm eating school food again?"

"Because your wife decided to be cruel and make you sit in the lunchroom with her so she wouldn't feel weird spying on a bunch of teenagers by herself."

"Since you've pretty much decided that we can't go to them for help, it's pretty pointless stalking them. I mean, we started working here before we even knew they were students. We just assumed things went the same here as they did back home."

"Everyone needs a hobby, Tommy. Even in a world like this one. Besides, I never said we could NEVER ask them for help. Just that it probably wouldn't go over well and wouldn't be easy. Kim Hart's a pretty common name, you know. But a Kim Hart accompanied by a Tommy Oliver, when they've got a Tommie Oliver of their own - THAT is just coincidental enough to keep them from kicking us right out the door."

"Assuming this Green Ranger is under someone else's control, and assuming she doesn't do so much damage they don't accept her. And that she even wants to join them if she's ever freed from said control," Tommy said, voice low so no one could clearly hear what they were talking about. "This world's a lot different from back home."

"If that girl ends up being half as guilt ridden as you were I don't think they'll have a problem."

**o0o**

Jason went missing in the middle of the night. His parents didn't have a clue he was even gone, and his friends couldn't tell them anything. Couldn't tell them that Billy had modded out the ankle bracelet. Couldn't tell them anything. Not that they'd notice in the first place... His dad was on the boat more often than not these days. His mom spent most of her time at her sister's... The only people that really missed him were the ones that needed him most.

"Guys! We need Jason and the tyrannosaurus!" Kim called over their zord coms as she evaded another swipe through the air by the Dragonzord.

"Where the hell is he?!" Trini shouted angrily from the cockpit of the Sabertooth tiger as it latched onto the tail of the lumbering beast with its jaws and hung on for dear life.

The triceratops had come up on its side, trying to gore the beast with its horn on one side as the mastodon tried to get at it with its tusks.

"I don't know but if he doesn't get here soon-" A missile from the pterodactyl struck the Dragonzord right in the face. A haunting melody wafted through the air again, just like the last time. Just like when the monster had risen again to attack the city. One of the enemy zords arms came up, fingers retracting into its hand and replaced with a spray of five missiles.

"Disengage! Disengage!" Billy cried as he pulled back on the controls of his zord. The Sabertooth was shaken free when the tip of the tail had started to spin like a hellish drill. A missile crashed into her side after she had skid to a stop.

Kim's zord screeched as she tried to evade two of the missiles, firing on one to bring it down but the other- "Heat seekers! She's got fucking heat seekers!" she cried seconds before the missile finally caught up with her, sending her zord into a spiral. "Mayday! Mayday!"

"Kim you gotta eject!"

"I have to-" she said, jerking hard on the flight stick. "I've got to clear the buildings!" She desperately tried to control the descent, aim her crashing zord for a less populated part of the city. But it was no use - she crashed right into an apartment block.

"Shit! You just took out my abuela’s house!" Trini screamed. "Thank fuck she’s at my place!"

The Dragonzord roared as it continued its rampage, another menacing tune drifting through the air as Kim climbed out of her damaged zord, fighting to maintain her morph as she dug her way out of the rubble.

Zack growled as his mastodon grappled with the Dragonzord, the drill tail driving into his zord's side and tearing through it like a hot knife through butter. "I'm dead in the water! It's no use! The damn thing is just too strong! We can't beat it without Jason!"

Billy limped his triceratops towards the mighty behemoth. His friends had fallen, he was the last man standing, barely. He had to protect his friends. He had to protect the people. The triceratops was put into a limping run, head down and ready to attempt another goring with its horn when the Dragonzord staggered back, as if in a confused daze. A new tune in the air. Sharper. The notes a bit higher, like some sort of flute.

The Dragonzord made a swipe with its tail at the triceratops, but missed. The blue zord's horn dug into it's emerald green leg. The dragon roared as the first haunting melody came through the air again, followed sharply by the new one. The mighty dragon seemed torn.

"I don't know what's happening guys!" Billy exclaimed as the Dragonzord shook him off. "But whatever it is I really hope it works!"

The new, flute-like sound echoed through the air again, and the emerald beast turned, lumbering back towards the bay.

Zack stood on the head of his fallen zord, watching the beast stagger away with only a minor damage compared to their own fighting metal beasts. "What the fuck just happened?"

"I don't know," Kim said as she helped Trini out of the cockpit of the Sabertooth tiger. "But whatever it was, Zordon and Alpha are going to know."


	3. Chapter 3

They were battered and bruised, and still a man down the next morning at school.

They'd gone to Zordon after the battle and it took some tinkering but Alpha was able to summon the damaged zords back to the ship. The ancient wall alien told them of how Rita used to control the Dragonzord using her dagger. How with it she could create a frequency that would allow her to remote control it to do her bidding. She could stand by and allow it to do her dirty work as she conquered planet after planet in her quest to find and claim the Zeo Crystal.

"But that doesn't explain the second one!" Kim had said. "We clearly heard a second, different, song!"

Alpha said he would work on it. While also working to find Jason where-ever he may be.

And all the Rangers could do was wait for the next attack.

Library study hall was hell. Billy seemed content working on some diagram he'd been drawing up since Jason went missing.

Trini sat up a bit straighter when she noticed the Parks giving each other a hard time again. She elbowed Zack to get his attention. "The weekly soap opera's on," she said quietly to him. "What do you think it is this time?"

"Must be pretty bad if she's not even talking to him," Zack said, chewing on the end of a Red Vine as their science teacher took out his phone, head bent in concentration as his thumbs went back and forth. He looked up at the librarian again. She frowned a few seconds later, her hand going for her pocket.

"Oh that's just pathetic," Kim murmured as the librarian looked at her phone with a frown, refusing to look at him. She typed something into the phone before putting it away. The teacher's phone let out a tiny roar, catching the observing Rangers by surprise and causing them to snicker.

"Doesn't he know this is a library. Put the thing on silent, Dr. Park," Billy said a little louder than he'd meant to. The librarian must have heard, because rather than shush them like she normally would, she just gave the teacher a smug look and crossed her arms over her chest.

Their teacher sighed, adjusted the volume on his phone, and the two continued not speaking with the occasional passive aggressive texting.

"So... Starbucks after school?" Kim asked when the show was over. "I mean, there's not a lot of options of places to hang out after that last attack."

**o0o**

"Jason was right!" A hard, sharp slap. "You're a reckless ass!"

That was not what they expected to hear when Kim cut off the radio and stopped the car in the parking lot of the Starbucks. Two girls watched out the front windshield as Dr. Park rubbed at his face where his wife had just slapped him in a fit of anger.

"Yikes," Kim said, wincing when she caught sight of the mark. "Wonder what the hell he did to make her that pissed."

Zack leaned forward between the seats so he could get a better view.

"Do you have any idea- I can't believe you- Did you really think I wouldn't find out?!"

"Guys, I think he cheated on his wife," Zack said. "What an idiot."

"Would you stop?" They watched as Dr. Park reached out to his wife, only to have his hand smacked away. "Kimmy, you're causing a scene."

"I'm causing a scene? I'M CAUSING A SCENE?!"

"Yes, you're causing a scene-"

"Three years! Three long, grueling years we've been stuck here and you just decide to what? See if it'll work here without knowing for sure it would even work?! You’re such"

The three teens watched as Dr. Park's entire demeanor and body language changed, going from good natured and very chastised school teacher to serious, almost dangerous in a manner of seconds. His lips moved but they didn't hear what he said as he reached out to grasp at her.

"Here we go guys... it's happening," Trini said, flinging open the passenger side door and climbing out. "This is happening."

Zack was already out, not even waiting for his friends. "Hey! Leave the lady alone!" he shouted, long legs striding towards the fighting couple.

"Great. Look what you did," Mrs. Park snapped angrily.

"What I did?! I told you-"

Before he could finish, the ground started to rumble beneath them, and the Parks staggered before gaining a solid foothold.

"Guys! We've got bigger problems!" Kim shouted, drawing their attention to her, and to what was lumbering down the street.

"Putties!" Trini exclaimed.

"That's not all... Look!" Zack shouted, pointing at the beast surrounded by the rock monsters. "It's got Jason!"

The fighting teacher and his wife were forgotten as the three teens sprung into action, the people fleeing for their lives.

"Rangers!" cried out a voice from a rooftop, seemingly amplified by some mechanism in the suit. "Surrender your power coins to me and I may be merciful," the Green warrior declared. "If not, then suffer the same fate as your leader!"

"You won't get away with this!"

"Really?" Green held up a red disk, tossing it in the air like it were merely trinket, then catching it in her hand. "Because this says I already have."

"We'll never surrender to you!" Kim shouted, putting herself front and center. "You'll have to kill all of us!"

"I really can't stand you, Pink," Green said from her perch, hiding the coin she'd taken from their Red Ranger and gripping her dagger.

The colored armor plates pushed out from their skin as they leapt into action.

From the relative safety of the Starbucks, Mr. and Mrs. Park seemed to come to some silent agreement, their argument put aside. For now. The woman nodded towards the building where Green was perched, watching the battle below.

"Now who's insane?" he said, reaching for the device attached to the back of his belt, hidden by his shirt. He couldn't use it here, now. Not unless he wanted to cause further confusion between himself and the evil version already in play. It was mostly to reassure himself that it was there, and ready just in case.

"Go invisible and just keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn't call her zord and if she does-"

"Then be a reckless ass. Got it." He drew a deep breath. "They've got armor, you don't. Be careful."

"Tommy, I've got the power of an evil lava god in me, and my morpher if I need a boost. Besides," she cracked her knuckles with a grin. "I've been spoiling for a good fight since we got here. It'll be good for me to let loose."

**o0o**

They didn't see the Parks in school the next day. Or the day after. Or the rest of the week.

As for Jason... they were all glad to have him back in one piece. Even if that piece was more battered and broken than they'd last seen it. Time spent in a healing tube on the ship and keeping his recovered coin on his person helped to speed up the already accelerated healing process their powers had given them. The fact he still looked rough the next day was a testament to how badly he was tortured by the Green Ranger that had held him captive. Not even a train at top speed ramming into the side of Mrs. Cranston's minivan had left such a lasting impression.

Jason's first day back at school didn't go all that well, and it was clear he was going through some serious shit psychologically. It wasn't until Kim found him eating his lunch in a stairwell that he was finally forced to tell her what had happened.

"It's Tommie. The Green Ranger is fucking Tommie Oliver," he said angrily.

"What?" Kim said, staring at him. "Jason, are you serious? That girl's dangerous on her own without any powers. But she's not... she's not exactly evil. A bit mean, and kind of a bully, but not like, Rita level of evil. Now-"

"Now she's a super powered monster who nearly beat me to death and stole my power coin," he said, giving up the pretense of eating his lunch. "The only reason I'm still alive is something happened while she had me. I don't know what you guys did to her zord, but as long as she didn't know, she wouldn't kill me."

"We don't know, either. Zordon and Alpha said Rita's zord is controlled remotely using some frequency. It sounds kind of nice, when you ignore the fact that it controls a giant robot dragon hellbent on destruction." She shrugged. "But the last couple of times it's showed up there's been something else stopping it. Another frequency. It could have crushed us, it damn near killed us but... it didn't. It just sort of turned around and lumbered off."

"That must be what set her off..." he mused. "Whatever, whoever, it was. I'd like to thank them for keeping me alive, even if what they were doing was the dumbest shit on Earth."

"Who knows, they might even be yet another Ranger."

Jason half-laughed. "Yeah. That's just what we need. More Power Rangers."

"Well..." Kim said, drawing out the syllables because she knew it annoyed him so much. "The Parks haven't come back to school since the day we got you back."

"Bet Trini's upset she doesn't get her weekly soap opera now."

"It's so weird though. Like, the last time any of us saw them was right before the fight to get you back."

Kim told him about the fight they watched between the science teacher and the assistant librarian at the Starbucks. And while initially disgusted by the behaviors, he was taken by surprise when Kim told him Mrs. Park had jumped into the fight, no morph, and ripped a putty's arm off with her bare hands. “Zordon and Alpha haven't seen anything like it before."

"You think they're... human?"

Kim shrugged, stealing his bag of Cheetos.

**o0o**

They hadn't left the apartment since putting in their resignation letters. Neither one of them really enjoyed their jobs. And with the savings they'd built up they didn't really need the jobs anyway. Admittedly a good chunk of it had been earned early on in their prolonged stay when Kim decided fuck it and found some street fights to get into when Tommy wasn't looking. Hey, Maligore's Daughter needed an outlet for her frustrations, and without her job at the gym... well... she had to do SOMETHING.

"What... if... what if we somehow separate Oliver from her power coin? From what we saw of Rita, it's not just a morpher, it's a full on power source. We could use it to power the dimension jumper you built, and I'm sure they'd like to be rid of it."

"Something that powerful? There's no way they'd let it out of their sight. Especially after seeing what you did to that putty."

"It was pretty funny when I asked it why it was hitting itself," she said with a grin before putting a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, about the other day... I'm sorry. Bringing Jason up like that was... I know you miss him. And it was petty."

"No, you were right. And so is he. I need him to keep me grounded, and he isn't here. I'm always going to be reckless. It's just who I am. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think I had a choice. When the T-Rex didn't show up, I... I had to at least try. Even if it didn't work, I had to know. We haven't even tried to morph since we got here."

She sighed, leaning forward. She rested her cheek against the crown of his head and he let her arms slide over his shoulders. It was a comforting gesture, nothing more. A sign that she had forgiven him, at least for now. And his acceptance of the simple action the only reciprocation she needed in order to understand that for now, she was forgiven.

They stayed like this for a little while longer, Kimberly occasionally turning her head to look at the screens as his search program sought out power sources they could use for powering their device. Their lifeline that they didn't even know if it would even work. But it was the only hope they still had of seeing their friends and family again.

Kimberly had left him, going to fix herself something to eat when she heard the ping coming from the extra bedroom turned office. "Tommy, what-?"

He came flying out of the office, pulling on his dark green hoodie. "Let's go."

She reached for her mulberry colored windbreaker. "Where are we going?"

"The mines."

"The mines?" she asked, pulling on her coat before reaching for her shoes and pulling them on. He was waiting impatiently at the door, an energy scanner in his hand made from an old Blackberry. "Why?"

"Because someone just sent out a distress signal right before it was cut off completely."

"You don't think- No. It couldn't be-"

"She's not as nice as I was when I was evil. She probably ripped their robot limb from limb. Lets go."

**o0o**

By the time they reached the mines, there was a jeep parked near their usual spot.

Kim looked to Jason with a frown. "I've got a bad feeling about this..." she said as their friends climbed out of the back of Mrs. Cranston’s new van. "I really hope I'm wrong about this..."

"So do I," he said, opening his door and climbing out. When everyone was out and feet on the ground, he gave a nod. "Alright Rangers. Suit up. We don't know what we're walking into here."

**o0o**

"My God, Tommy," she said, looking up at the water floating above them. She dripped onto the dirt, taking off her jacket and squeezing it out as best as she could. "That was-"

"No time. Lets go. The signal's coming from up here," he said, stalking off into the darkness of the caves, his home-brew energy scanner giving off a faint pinging noise as he moved in the shadows.

"Hey, not so fast. If she's still here she'll flatten you like a pancake."

"Then hurry up," he hissed back at her as they wove their way through the tunnels.

Tommy's scanner started pinging more rapidly before at last, they found the source. "What the hell?..."

"It's a space ship!" Kimberly exclaimed as they moved forward towards of a set of clearly unnatural metal steps embedded in the rock face. A large door slid open at the top when they had gotten closer, and cautiously they approached. Kimberly put her arm out to stop him. "Let me go first. More durable than a regular Ranger, remember?"

"You never let me forget," he muttered as she took point. He followed her in, turning to look the way they'd come only when the door slammed closed after they'd gone inside. "Well... we won't be going back out that way." They climbed the steps into the unknown.


	4. Chapter 4

Zack was crouched on the ground when the rest of his team dropped down out of the water. "We've got visitors," he said, indicating the two sets of wet footprints and a puddle that he'd found when he dropped down before the others.

Trini crossed her arms, turning to look at their fearless leader in Red. "How would they even know the way to get in here?"

"You think this has to do with Oliver?" Kim asked him.

"Freaky librarian that can rip apart a putty with her bare hands shows up in the middle of the Green Ranger's attacks on us? Now we catch part of a distress signal from Alpha and find a jeep outside our secret spaceship? Yeah. I'd say it has to do with Oliver all right," Jason said. "Lets go."

**o0o**

"Tommy look!" she cried, finding the collection of broken metal and burned wires. The back wall of the chamber rippled as if alive, and reminded Tommy of static on a television.

"This must be the Command Center," he said, adjusting his scanner as he used it to examine the rippling static wall.

"She's absolutely vicious..." Kimberly said, cradling what appeared to be the head of this team's Alpha 5 robot. She began to gather up the pieces, moving them to a pile as Tommy continued to examine the chamber. A hologram - showing only static - projected in the center of five slightly raised, lit stations.

"Can you feel that?" he said, moving closer to the central hologram. "These platforms are pulsing with morphing energy. You think these are connected to their powers? Like a central battery? Or a physical link to their morphing grid?"

Kimberly turned toward him to respond, but instead jumped to her feet and leapt in the way of a pink clad fist. It smashed into her right shoulder, causing her to stagger back into Tommy, who bumped one of the stations. For just a second he felt a familiar pulse flow through him along his spine, akin to when he would morph into his Black Dino form. It was strange, and almost comforting.

He didn't have time to think about it before dodging out of the way of a red boot aimed at his face.

The two stranded veterans were separated. Tommy dodged, knowing he was no match for these super-enhanced Rangers. Hell, stealing a glance over to Kimberly told him even she had a bit of trouble with three on one. And that was even considering the power she gained from Maligore.

Tommy had nowhere to go, backed up practically to the vibrating static wall. He dropped down to avoid another kick, but misjudged his opponent and had been grabbed by the throat when he went left instead of right.

The one holding him wore black. His grip tightening his hold on the not-really science teacher.

"Zack wait!" Kimberly cried out without caring that the name had slipped, having been held between the yellow and the blue, with blue apologizing at the same time because "Normally I don't like to hit a lady but you have to admit it's really suspicious that you're here and one of my best friends is all over the floor in pieces." She ignored his rambling, as she struggled against their hold, with the Pink one keeping herself between the not-librarian and her partner in crime.

"Please!" Kimberly shouted, "Please! We're not your enemy!"

"Sure looks that way to me," Pink quipped.

"Please... he's not... he's not as strong as we are. Restrain him if you want, but stop choking him!"

"Why? So you guys can rip the rest of us to pieces like you did Alpha?"

"That wasn't us. We found him like this," Tommy croaked out as he tried to pull at the black armor plated hand. " _We're like you_."

Kimberly struggled against her captors again, almost growling with the rage of Maligore as she tried to get loose. There was only one hope they had now. One chance, and though they didn't want to take it... "We know how to stop the Green Ranger! Please, just put him down! I'll tell you everything!"

"Kim. Don't." Tommy struggled to breathe.

Pink turned to Red. Black tilted his head. "It's your call, Boss."

"Cut him loose."

And like that, Tommy was dropped to the floor. "What about this one?" Yellow called out. "She's got spunk for an old lady."

"Any of Alpha's old storage rooms near here?"

"Uh... Yeah."

"Good. Throw 'em in one." Red turned his attention to Yellow. "You guard the door. They try and escape, use your judgment."

Blue loosened his grip just a little, but it was enough for Kimberly to slip free and race to Tommy's side. She helped him to sit up, checking his neck and body over for injuries.

"I don't know who the hell you two really are," Jason said firmly. "But if I think for one second you're working for Oliver, I won't hesitate to do to you what you did to our friend over here."

Tommy swallowed, staring up into the masked face of the Red Ranger and rubbed his throat. They knew it was risky coming out here, but they had to see. They had to find out for themselves. And maybe, if they cooperated, they might be able to finally get home.

**o0o**

Kim sat on the steps before Zordon's wall, one knee bouncing anxiously as Billy carefully searched for and gathered every last scrap of Alpha he could find. "I don't like this," she said. "This smells like a total Rita move man."

"What kind of bad guys hide out as teachers?" Billy commented as he picked up part of Alpha's bottom half and put it in the cart he'd found, adding it to the slightly convenient pile he'd discovered with the other pieces. "The school records show they've been working there for almost three years. Unless they somehow knew we were going to become Power Rangers I don't think they really plan on trying to kill us."

"I don't know... it just doesn't feel right. Did you see what happened when he was backed up against the footprints?" she asked, picking at one of her nails.

"Yeah... that glowy thing was a little weird. Not as weird as when we first touched them, but still weird. He looked kind of like a rainbow for a minute."

"If Zordon were here he'd know what it meant."

"You know what else is weird?" Zack said as he came in, a black towel draped over a shoulder and a sports bottle held in one hand. "Mrs. Park knew my name."

"We don't even know if Park's her real name," Billy pointed out. "It could be a deep cover for a government secret agent. Or, oh! They could be part of a sleeper cell of government super soldiers!"

"Someone needs to lay off the Marvel movies for a while," Jason said as he came in behind Zack from the Pit. "Though after seeing what the woman's capable of, it might be true."

Zack shrugged, tilting his head back and squirting some Gatorade down his throat.

"She said she knows how to stop Oliver," Kim said, standing up and going down the steps, hands in the back pockets of her shorts.

"She'd say anything to get me to let her boy go," Zack said. "They might not like each other much, but if Billy and Trini didn't have such a grip on her I might not have a head right now."

"First things first. We need to get Alpha put back together so we can get Zordon back," Jason said, wiping the sweat from his face with the red towel hanging around his neck. "Till then, we need to figure out what to do with those two. And how they got in here."

Billy loaded the last few pieces of Alpha onto his cart. "Well," he said. "We could just ask them. No one can get in here without a power coin."

Kim gave him a sidelong glance. "Except those two did."

"Exactly. Maybe they're Rangers, or like Rangers, too. The ship is connected to the morphing grid, right? And it sort of reads us when we come in. To make sure we're us. Maybe it did the same to them. The door wouldn’t have opened if they didn't have something it recognized."

"Like our power coins, right?"

Billy nodded enthusiastically. Jason thought about what his friend said for a few minutes then turned to Kim, the girl who just sort of naturally fit as his second. "What do you think?"

"I think we should throw them in the Pit and let the holo trainer have its way with them."

"And you, Zack?"

The Black Ranger was leaning over a rail, holding his sports bottle loosely. "You know there might be something to what Billy said."

Kim turned her attention to him. "Yeah?"

Zack nodded. "When I had him up by his throat, he said something. He said _'We're like you'_."

"If they're like us then why didn't they just morph?"

Zack shrugged. "Hey, I'm not the brains of this outfit. Just the good looking muscle."

Jason pondered the situation before coming to a decision. "The systems of this ship are telepathic to an extent. Like our morphing and the zords. Billy, I want you to work on fixing Alpha. Kim, you've got an eye for detail. Try and tap into the ship's computer to keep an eye on our guests."

Billy, given his task, let Jason handle delegating the rest as he wheeled the pieces of his robotic friend to the nearest pacethat looked like a workshop. He stopped to pick up a crudely made device, examining it under close scrutiny before pocketing it. He could take it apart later and have a closer look when he wasn't busy rebuilding his friend.

**o0o**

Kimberly paced back and forth across the storage room. She'd already gone through everything she could find and it was no use. Nothing that could be converted to a weapon. Nothing that could help them escape.

"Just sit down."

"No. The last time I was cooped up in a small room like this, Jason and I were thrown into a volcano. I am NOT going to be a human sacrifice again."

"They're Rangers. They're not going to throw us into a volcano."

She growled at him. "Sorry if I can't be Mrs. Sunshine and Optimism, Tommy. But these are highly emotional super powered teenagers with-"

"Attitude?" he asked sarcastically, causing her to glare at him.

"That's not funny and you know it."

"I thought it kind of was. Besides, that's pretty much a pre-requisite to being a Ranger."

"These kids are fighting with a level of power and skill that took us years to master. And they've been doing this a matter of months-"

"This world is a lot more dangerous and violent than ours was. I don't know how or where it diverged but-"

"Rita was a Ranger here Tommy. SHE was Green."

"What?"

"I overheard the kids talking about it in the library during your study hall," she said, ceasing her pacing and propping herself against the wall, arms folded across her bosom and her shoulders pressed back against the cool metal. "THAT is where this world went wrong."

"God... no wonder... their powers had to evolve at a faster rate just to bring her to a stalemate..." he said, running a hand through his short hair. "Man. Imagine if the Rita we faced decided to use the coin like this one. Earth wouldn't have stood a chance."

"She focused more on magic than on the Power. Looks like this world wasn't so lucky."

"Do you think we can save the girl? Break the coin's hold on her like we did before?"

Kimberly shrugged. "We don't know how things work here. Thanks to you being a reckless ass-"

"Yes, I'm aware of that, thank you."

"We know we can morph. So the Grid here might be just compatible enough to our own to let us fake it 'till we make it. But outside of that..." She turned her face up to the ceiling, closing her eyes and sighing.

**o0o**

She'd been watching them for a few hours. Zack had gone to relieve Trini on guard duty and Jason had gone to help Billy with the repairs to Alpha. But he'd have to head home soon to put on the show for his parents before coming back to the ship.

He stopped by now to check with Kim for any changes with their prisoners.

"Anything?"

"For the first two hours she tore the storage room apart and tested things for weapons. He's just sort of... sat there. Thought he fell asleep after a while but then he stood up, stretched, and sat back down."

"So nothing."

"I didn't say that," Kim said. She reached out towards the hologram interface and thought at the computer what she wanted. The image zoomed in on the pair now that the woman had stopped pacing. "They've been talking for a while. Do you want the recap or the live feed?" she asked.

"Might as well go live. I can catch up on the rest when I get back."

Kim nodded and concentrated on what she wanted to happen. The voices cut in part-way through.

 

_"-can't give up. I know these kids aren't like we were. They've had too much thrown at them too fast. I don't think they'll ever trust the girl, if they even did to begin with. But if anyone understands what she's going through-"_

_"You can't save everyone. We got lucky with Kat. And you got lucky with Trent. Hell, from what he tells me the gem's corruption encoding was so powerful that it nearly killed him fighting it. This? This is infinitely worse. This world is like, amped up to eleven. You need to be prepared for the possibility that we can't save her."_

_"We can't, but the Rangers can. I know it. I've just got this feeling-"_

_"You can't stop the Green Ranger with a feeling. You know that just as well as I do. Just like I know they've probably been listening to every word we've been saying since we got locked in here."_

 

The woman on the hologram opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling which, coincidentally, was the angle the hologram was broadcasting at.

 

_"Because I know that's exactly what I would do."_

 

Kim nearly jumped back from her footprint when the hologram eyes seemed to lock straight onto her own as she watched. Jason turned away from the scene of the supply closet playing out before him. "Get them something to eat. When I get back, we get to the bottom of this. We can't waste time with Oliver and Rita's coin still out there."


	5. Chapter 5

Trini had left hours ago with Zack taking over guard duty. She'd promised to swing by Zack's place to check on his mom before she headed home. It wasn't the first time she'd had to step in and help him out some. For her, it got her out of the house and away from her mom for a while. For him... well, it helped his mom to know he had friends. Helped her feel like she wasn't keeping her son from having a life outside of caring for her and whatever else he got up to.

As for Zack... he and Kim suited up. These two might know who they are, but that didn't mean they were ready to let their guard down. Especially around Superwoman.

The door slid up and Zack stepped inside, Kim at his back watching the door. The two guests-prisoners looked towards him when he came in. A plate in hand. "Boss man said to feed you," he said.

The woman glared at him. The man though, stood and stretched. "Thank you," he said politely. "Already proving better hosts than some of our past jailers."

"Cut the chit-chat," Kim said from the doorway. Zack set the plate on the floor. The two prisoners could now see it had a few sandwiches sitting on it. He backed his way out of the room as the woman came forward to retrieve the plate. When the door slid closed again, Zack let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

Kim laughed at him. "Were you scared?"

"No. They're just two middle aged-."

"You totally were. Look at you! If I didn't know better-"

"Knock it off, unless you want guard duty."

"Can't. Gotta check on Billy and Alpha."

**o0o**

Jason had just managed to climb in through his bedroom window when his dad pulled up in the driveway. He made a little mess in his room to make it look like he'd been in there most of the afternoon. As for dinner... His stomach growled as he emerged from his room, rubbing at his eyes as if he'd just woken up.

The lying got easier, but the weight of it didn't. He made his way to the kitchen, avoiding his dad as best as he could but...

"Seen your mother?"

Jason didn't turn to look at him. Instead he opened the cabinet and pawed through for something quick to eat. "No. Not like the two of you spend much time at home anyway," he said, finding an old package of shrimp flavored ramen. Well... better than nothing. And it meant he only had to spend three minutes, maybe four, in the kitchen with his old man.

His dad said something else, but Jason didn't care enough to pay attention as he set up his ramen for the microwave.

"Look," he said finally when the microwave stopped. "I've got a big test coming up and gotta study. Which is a little harder to do considering I can't leave the house after seven to work with my tutor."

"And who's fault is that?"

"Mine. I know. You've all made that pretty clear," Jason snapped back, grabbing his bowl and a fork before pushing past his dad. "If you see mom before I do tell her we need more coffee."

**o0o**

It had taken hours but eventually Sam Scott went to bed and Jason was able to sneak away and head back to the ship. Unfortunately, he didn't quite make it that far.

The hair stood up on the back of his neck just seconds before the attack came at the edge of town. Within seconds the morph came upon him, and he was blocking move for move.

She caught his ankle when he moved to kick, "Out for a stroll, Scott?"

He tried to pull himself free but her grip was firm. And it would have to be his shit leg, too. She picked him up, flinging him to the side. Mid-flight he tucked his limbs in, allowing himself to roll when he hit the ground. He barely had enough time to summon his sword to block her dagger.

"Why are you doing this?!" he shouted, pushing back against her as she bore down on him.

"Revenge," she growled just as he managed to push her back and away. She charged him again, but just as suddenly as she had appeared.... she was gone in a flash of red rather than the green that always accompanied the murderous Green Ranger.

"What the fuck was that about?" Jason asked himself as the face-plate and visor retracted back to expose his face.

**o0o**

Back on the ship, Billy ran through to the control room, shouting excitedly. "I did it! I did it!"

Kim's head snapped up from her textbook. She had the live feed of their prisoners, who after being fed had pretty much kept quiet and to themselves, up on the central hologram. With nothing better to do... well, she still had a test to study for. "You fixed Alpha?!" she exclaimed.

"Well, not exactly fixed. But I got his head turned on. And, well..."

At that moment a clunky, gaudy, retro-looking robot clanked along behind him. It's head was, well, similar in shape at least. The body bulky. At least the voice was the same. "See for yourself," Billy said.

"I hate this body. I have always hated this body. Look at me!"

"I got his head turned on and he said to take his processor and put it in his old backup," Billy explained. "He hasn't stopped complaining since."

Kim tried not to laugh. "Can you still interface with the ship?"

"Of course I can."

"Then what's the problem?" Kim asked.

"The problem is I look like a low budget kid's show robot!" Alpha shouted. "I'm detecting two extra life signs in the ship..." he said suddenly, then turned his full attention to the hologram in the middle of the control room. "You figured out how to interface!"

"Yeah. Sort of had to since you've been in pieces and Zordon's... well..." she gestured to the still rippling wall where normally Zordon would be popping out to yell at everyone. "Still don't know how to get Zordon back though."

"So that's what they look like," Alpha said as his heavy, clanking footsteps took him closer to the hologram.

"What do you mean?"

"I might have been in pieces, but the ship was still recording. These two came along after small, green, and angry took off. Or didn't you think to look at the security feed?"

Billy frowned. "Hey, Kim did her best. We're still trying to figure out how all of this stuff works."

"Ai-yi-yi..." the robot voice grumbled as the light on the outer edge moved from side to side. It was strange seeing Alpha like this, without his extendable limbs and moving optical orbs. It was sort of unsettling. "Do I have to do everything in this place?"

"You know what they say, if you want it done right..." Kim said, trailing off as she set her school book aside and got to her feet. "So... we're holding people against their will for something they didn't do?"

"Now she gets it," Alpha said, unable to inject his usual sarcasm and snark due to the limitations of his audio output. He moved to one of the footprints - Kim noted it was her own - and stepped up onto it. When he did, the hologram in the center changed and a panel rose up in front of him. "Have I told you how much I hate this body yet?" Alpha complained once again. "Everything has to be done on manual. I'll never find another combat frame as good as that one."

"Why not?" Billy asked, genuinely curious. "We can fix up you body. It might take a while because honestly I've never seen wiring like that in my life but I'm sure if you teach me I can figure it out. I'm a fast learner. My mom says-"

"Billy!" Kim cut in. "Look, can you show us what happened or not, Alpha?"

"What do you think I'm trying to do? These stubby fingers are really slow to respond. They haven't been oiled in over 65 million years you know." Moments later the hologram finally went from the usual starry screen saver of the Morphing Grid to a pink and white tinged replay of what was now the day before.

Billy watched in mild fascination as the scene played out. Kim stood with her arms across her chest, frowning in concentration as she watched Alpha's old body fight, and lose, against the intruding Green Ranger.

 

_"Tommie, you don't have to do this," the recording of Zordon's voice boomed out. "If you give up your coin now-"_

_"Shut up old man!" the Green Ranger spat back as she ripped one of Alpha's arms off when he tried to restrain her. They watched as she ripped Alpha limb from limb, even as a distress signal had been sent out to the Rangers._

_When she was done with Alpha, she circled the footprints, even as Zordon tried to talk reason to her. "Worry about saving yourself, Zordon!" she shouted as she activated one of the footprints. A sickly green color began to infect the hologram of the hologram of the Grid._

 

"So that's how she did it..." Alpha said. "That's not good."

"What did she do? How did she shut down Zordon?"

"She infected the Grid with the energy from her coin. It's slowly been weakening you against her powers." He sped up the hologram, slowing it down when the two intruders had first entered the ship. It was at that moment Jason came in, still a little damp from the drop from the water. "What the hell is that thing?"

"It's Alpha!" Billy exclaimed. "I mean, it was one of Alpha's old bodies," he explained as Jason stepped closer, joining them at the footprints. He watched with great interest as the ship's surveillance seemed to follow them through the corridors. The woman walking ahead of him, seemingly alert as he trailed behind with some device in his hand, using it to scan different directions and parts of the ship as they passed.

Billy took that same device out of his pocket and fiddled with it. "So that's what this is," he said, stepping away from his friends to sit and play around with it.

 

_"Tommy look!" the woman in the hologram cried out before running out of the shot for a second. It followed when the man sped up to catch up with her._

 

"Did she just call him what I think she called him?"

"Yeah..." Jason said slowly.

"Oh oh!" Alpha drew their attention back to the hologram. "This is the best part. This is where you guys come in."

 

_"-feel that? These platforms are pulsing with morphing energy. You think these are connected to their powers? Like a central battery? Or a physical link to their morph-"_

 

Alpha stopped the hologram. "You guys know the rest. So... you want to talk to your prisoners now and find out what's going on? Or should we send Zack in with another plate of bologna sandwiches?"

"How would we even begin to start asking them anything? Clearly they know a heck of a lot more than we do and as far as I know none of us have told anyone anything? And how did they even get in here?! The door just opened right up apparently and lets anyone in."

"I suggest we just start with that," Billy said from his corner, the face-plate on the modified Blackberry in one hand while he held up the device itself with the other. "This is pretty good work. Simple, crude, but effective. I'd really like to know what it's for. It kept making a weird ping noise before the battery died."

"I have an idea," Jason said. "Alpha, before you guys were stranded here did you ever pick up Rita's followers or anyone you needed to question?"

"All the time."

"How did Zordon make sure he got honest answers out of your prisoners?"

"Well... it depends. If they were normal, he usually just... well... he wasn't exactly the nicest guy during the war."

"And if they weren't normal?"

"If they were traitors, he'd activate a truth field. It's this sort of..." Alpha waved his hands around a bit as if trying to find the right words. "They were put into this force field. And if they lied they got a shock. The more they lied, the worse the shocks were. Don't want to get shocked, then don't lie."

Kim stared past him to the rippling wall in disbelief. "That's barbaric!" she exclaimed, then turned her attention to Jason. "No. That's torture. They're people Jason, not monsters!"

"Yeah? The woman can rip a putty apart with her bare hands, no morph. I don't want to take my chances."

"Jason, you're letting your anger-"

Kim cut Billy off quickly. "Jason, you're not leader anymore. I'm taking over."

"You can't do that! I'm-"

"Out of you God damn mind is what you are! We were wrong. They didn't come here to hurt us, and they didn't destroy Alpha and shut down Zordon! You just saw it yourself!"

"They found our base, know who we are, and can do fuck only knows what! Suddenly the librarian and our science teacher keep turning up every time that green bitch does and you don't see a connection here?! Are you all blind?!"

"Are you?!" Kim shouted back. "You want to stay leader? Fight me. Right now, in the Pit. I win, you back off and step aside until this is over. You win, then you can find yourself another team."

"Kim-"

"You know... after Rita destroyed Eltar Zordon's Black Ranger had to relieve him of command because he lost his damn mind."

"So there's precedent?" Billy asked as Kim and Jason continued to shout at one another.

"Fine. How do we do this?" Kim snapped, grabbing Alpha's attention again. "Because I'll do whatever I have to do to make sure this team, AND it's Red Ranger don't turn into the monsters we swore to protect against."

While the pair of them were fighting, Alpha quietly moved around bits of code in the computer matrix. "And done. For now, Pink Ranger is the leader of the team."

"WHAT?!"

"Hey, what can I say. When she's right, she's right."

"Don't worry Jason," Billy piped up. "She's a good leader. While you were gone she even managed to get Zack to do his own homework. Besides, I agree with Kimberly. I really wouldn't feel right if we tortured innocent people without knowing if they're on our side or not. Or torturing anyone really. And I think your emotions are getting in the way because of what the Green Ranger did to you. Think of it like a detective being taken off a case because of conflict of interest, like in those cop shows on TV."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alpha's spare body is the Alpha 5 model from the original MMPR. He'll get his sleek movie body back at some point soon though.  
> And man Jason's a moody bitch. I know the original Green With Evil arc was on a kid's show and so having Jason being a bit traumatized from literally being stripped of his power and agency in the Dark Dimension couldn't really be explored but... here we have Jason Scott, his cool leadership demeanor starting to really fucking shatter because you don't go through something like that without "issues". Plus, y'know, his home life is falling apart so... yeah.


	6. Chapter 6

She halted her charge when she realized she wasn't about to mow down the Red Ranger anymore. She howled in rage as she staggered, dagger out and ready to strike whomever pulled her from her attack. "I had him!"

"Just like you had him the last time," the creature sneered at her from the dark. "But you let him get away."

"If you hadn't cock-blocked me I would have recaptured him!"

"Silly child... what did you plan to tell our master?... That he fell on your little knife? Or that he ripped his own spine out?"

A growl emanated from the green helmet, beginning deep in the teen girl's chest, from the very core of her being. "What? Jealous?" she said, adjusting her grip on her dagger as she listened to her surroundings closely. "Afraid I'll make you look bad? Succeed where you failed?"

"He wants the Red Ranger for himself. The others... well... you do like to play with your food."

The girl snarled at the voice in the darkness before leaping towards it with a roar. Her dagger was raised high, but was stopped by a scimitar, throwing her back towards the torch light into which she had first appeared. A woman stepped out, keeping herself between the Green Ranger and the voice. Gold armor gleaming in the firelight as she rested the flat of her blade upon her shoulder. "Someone needs to teach you proper respect."

The Green Ranger's face plate retracted just enough to show a cruel, taunting smile. "Nice shield. When I'm done with you, I think I'll keep it. A little memento of our time together. Just us girls." She dropped into a crouch, adjusting her dagger one more time as the mouthpiece of her face plate went back into place.

"Scorpina, rip out her insolent tongue."

"With pleasure, my Empress," her golden warrior replied, stepping forward and into the fight.

**o0o**

With Alpha back, more or less, they didn't need a guard on the door. Not that they had needed one to begin with it turned out. Kim sent her two friends home while Jason worked off his anger in the Pit. Sometimes if she listened closely she could hear him in the distance fighting with the holo trainer.

Alpha worked as fast as his stubby fingers could go on the Grid, trying to pull Zordon back from where the Green Ranger had banished him to, with little success. Every time he thought he was close the hologram would fill with green energy and burn out again.

"I made the right call, didn't I?" she asked the robot after it seemed to shout in frustration. "With Jason. We should have done it sooner. He's a good leader but... What he went through we shouldn't have let him come back until he had time to deal."

"You humans are so fragile," Alpha said. "Zordon had to be replaced for a while, too. Of course he wasn't kidnapped and tortured. He just watched his entire home planet and everything he loved blow up in front of him."

"Rita..."

"Worse. Lord Zedd. Rita wouldn't hand over the coin to him after she took it and used it herself. When the Eltarians wouldn't surrender the secret of the Morphing Grid - BOOM! He blew it up. And as for Rita... well, she wanted to overthrow her boss which is why she started looking for a Zeo crystal."

Kim left not long after, and Jason after that. But only because he had to get home before his father woke up.

Alone in the ship, Alpha turned his attention back to the security footage from the attack and after it as he tried to make sense of what the Green Ranger had done to the Morphing Grid and Zordon.

He had a section of the footage looped on repeat. Starting with the Green Ranger infecting the Grid and ending with their surprise guests fighting with the Rangers. Specifically the man bumping into one of the footprints. Then back to start again.

_"Can you feel that? These platforms are pulsing with morphing energy. You think-"_

Alpha rewound it and started again.

_"Can you feel that? These platforms are pulsing with morphing energy."_

Alpha paused it and ignored the device the man was holding and watching his other hand. Right before he said... He rewound it again.

_"Can you feel that?"_

He paused it. The man had been reaching out, almost like he was going to try and touch... "He can sense Grid energy," Alpha said. "He can sense Grid energy!" Alpha would have thrown his arms in the air to celebrate, but given he was stumpy and bulky and it was awkward to move around, he stepped off the footprint and stomped his feet instead. "Which means..." He stepped back up on the footprint and sped the footage up. Stopping it and looping it back again.

After a few more tweaks, and a lot of slow down.... "Just about.... there!" he vocalized with as much emotion as his old hardware was capable of, which wasn't much. There, in the hologram, looping in slow motion was a ghost image. When the man touched the footprint, a seeming kaleidoscope of colors had flared around him, just for a few seconds. And when stopped just at the right moment...

"A Power Ranger," Alpha would have said in awe, if he could. The design of the suit he saw was hard to make out. It wasn't at all familiar, and seemed to be a combination of mismatched items and colors. A red leg, a black helmet. A torso with a black and gold armor and green arms. But there was no mistaking it. He was staring at a Power Ranger.

Something that according to both Alpha's backups and the ship's database should have been impossible. Zordon's team was the last. Five strong. Then four. Three. Two. Until Rita had been the last one standing before Alpha shoved an asteroid in her face. All the others, all the other Rangers in the legion were wiped out in the war.

So he went backwards and forwards. Frame by frame, but it was no use trying to get anything clearer. The transitions just went too fast to really isolate a single one of them with so small a sample.

**o0o**

"You did WHAT?!" Trini exclaimed when Kim had told her what she'd done the night before after Trini had left. The ex-cheerleader pulled her friend into the stairwell and looked around to make sure they were alone.

"What the hell, Kim?!"

"I had to. Jase is... What the Green Ranger did to him- we were just so happy to have him back we didn't stop to think he might need longer to recover. I should have known something was wrong but he kept saying he was fine any time I brought it up and-"

"Whoa girlie, slow down. Everything is running together."

Kim stopped and took a long, deep breath as Trini adjusted the strap on her bag. "Start from the beginning," Trini said.

"Sometime after you left Billy got Alpha's head to work, and Alpha had him turn on one of his old spare part bodies."

One side of Trini's mouth turned up slightly in a half smile. "Nice," she said. "What next?"

"Well the ship records everything that happens on it. Alpha showed us what happened to him, and when the Parks showed up. They didn't do it. The Green Ranger did. She also did something to the Morphing Grid. Infected it or something."

Trini nodded, then asked, "So why did you basically nut-shot Jason?"

"He wanted to know what Zordon used to do with prisoners during the war against Rita. From what Alpha said, it wasn't good. Jason saw the part with the Parks in it, he saw Mrs. Park trying to gather up Alpha's pieces but he was still considering using this sort of truth field thing Alpha told us about."

"Okay. With you so far Pinkie. What's so bad about making them tell the truth?"

"It's like that thing from Harry Potter. You lie and you get hurt. It's torture and it's wrong. Jason's not thinking clearly and I couldn't let him even consider it an option. It's not like I wanted to do it, but no one else but Billy was there and you know Billy."

"Unfortunately," Trini muttered with a sigh. Billy was great. He was smart, and kind, and honest and loved his friends with everything he had. But he was also... well... BILLY. And being his friend could be pretty exhausting for everyone when he was on one of his invention binges. "How did he take it?"

"Billy backed me up and Jason spent most of the night in the Pit."

"Ouch."

Kim sighed. "I've got to tell Zack next." Kim tucked her hair behind her ear. "Do you think I did the right thing here?"

"If Billy agreed with you so easily, then yeah. You know how black and white his world is. You're either good or bad. Right or wrong. Even if he's uncomfortable with it, if he thinks you did the right thing then so do I. And so will Zack."

They talked quietly a little longer before leaving the stairwell.

**o0o**

She looked like hell. She felt worse. As she unlocked the door, the smell of burning plastic hit her like a sack of bricks. "Fuck," she muttered under her breath before trying to make her way through the trailer without being spotted.

A hand grabbed her by the hair before she could reach the short hallway that led back to her bedroom. Rather, what passed for her bedroom in this shit hole.

"Where the hell have you been?!"

"School!"

"Bullshit. School's been callin'. You ain't been goin." The hand tightened in her hair and pulled, hard. She bit her tongue. She could just turn and waste this walking garbage pile, but the last thing she needed was the cops on her case. The last thing she needed was to completely blow her cover.

It was bad enough the Rangers figured it out. Bad enough the Red one got away... but she couldn't afford to make another mistake. Couldn't afford to draw their attention again too soon. Not until she figured out how to just make it all stop.

Eleven days of hell and pain and grief before it all culminated in that one moment...

"It's the truth! Fuck! Let go Joan! You're hurting me!"

The moment she had tried to put herself in front of that train. Ready to end it all. And then He came for her...

"You callin me a liar you fuckin freak?!"

She heard the spring, and the click of the blade as it slotted into place. Her fighting instinct kicked in. Fuck her cover. Fuck trying to have a normal life. That life was ripped from her the day her father didn't come home after being sent to check out some stupid body on a fishing boat. The rest of it crumbled when that bitch took out her mother's jewelry store...

She pushed backward, smashing the back of her head into her methed out aunt's face and causing her to let go of her hair. She turned quickly, bringing her knee up to smash into the side of the gaunt thin body as she pinned the woman to the wall of the trailer. The knife clattered to the ground and for just a moment, just for a fleeting second Tommie thought about picking it up and using it.

Instead, she ground her knee into the woman's side, putting most of her weight behind it. "Don't you fucking ever pull a knife on me again," she snarled angrily, unaware of the murderous intent behind her own eyes as her aunt Joan clawed at her thigh with chemical stained fingers.

When she finally let the woman go, watching as she crumpled to the floor and holding her side, Tommie went to her room and locked the door - for all the good it would do. It would never keep the monsters out... But it might keep one in if only for a little while.

**o0o**

They weren't the first to arrive back at the ship after school.

"If you're looking for Jason he's in the Pit again," Alpha said when Kim and Billy came in, Zack and Trini not far behind them.

"Your turn," Kim said to Trini.

"Have you been on the other end of his punches when he's angry?! I'll take a pass on that thanks."

"You weren't here so he's less likely to be mad at you. I'll buy you a coke and snack cakes for a week. Please?"

"Hostess. Not the crap store brand my mom buys," she said.

"You drive a hard bargain..." Kim said, then nodded. "Hostess."

With that settled, Trini bounded off for the Pit. Kim turned her attention to Zack and Billy. "Alright. We can't leave them in there forever and I'm pretty sure they probably need to uh.. freshen up. Alpha, we're going to need somewhere to-"

"Already took care of that. I had them move to one of the old crew cabins while you all were gone."

"Did they see you?"

"No. I closed the bulkheads and made them follow a complicated route through the ship before putting them in the room next door."

Kim thought she could detect a hint of sarcasm, just a hint.

"Of course they saw me! I had to make sure they didn't get lost. Though... they did comment on this tin can I'm stuck in."

"Oh?" Billy asked, moving closer to the footprints. At first Kim thought he was remarking on what Alpha had said but instead, when he stepped down closer to the hologram to look at it. "This here," he said. "You're trying to isolate the problem in the Grid that's keeping Zordon from coming back."

"It looks like the Green Ranger used her own morphing energy to make a cage around him. One that every time I try to pick the lock keeps shorting out the pathways and I have to start all over again."

"So what you're saying is... she's put a computer virus in the Grid. Right?"

"In a way, yes."

"So write some antivirus code or something and-"

"He can't," Billy said suddenly, looking at it from another angle. "See this here? And that? And these over here?" Billy asked, pointing to different points in the hologram. The colors were corresponding to their coins. That much Kim could tell. "These points of light correspond to real world locations. Physical access points that we use to access the Morphing Grid. I recognize this one," he said, pointing to the blue one before moving to stand on his footprint. When he did so, it lit up even brighter. "When I was dead I saw this. I went there. It was... It was amazing. So many colors and lights and there were so many people with so many colors wrapped around them. Come on and stand on yours. Come on," Billy coaxed his friends.

Kim glanced at Zack who just shrugged and stepped up. Kim followed when Alpha had stepped off hers. As they took their place, each one lit up with a bright, pulsing energy.

"Okay, what now?"

"Look at them. Really look. See, I'm here," he said. "Then Trini should be there. And Jason there."

Kim stared at the representation of the Grid. Then it clicked. "There's an empty space. Where the cage is. Between Pink and Red."

"That's where... Green used to be," Alpha said. "Before Zordon cut Rita off from the Grid. She had super strength but she couldn't heal like you can. She had to use dark magic to make up for it."

"She used the gold to heal herself. That's how she was able to get back up in the fight!" Zack exclaimed.

Billy nodded his agreement. He'd suspected it, but didn't think it was entirely possible. But now...

Kim looked to Billy, then to Alpha. "Do you think the new Green Ranger used our footprints to gain access and link herself back to the Grid?"

"Yeah. And she trapped Zordon in the link. If we break the link, we might lose Zordon for good. I've been trying and trying to find a way to get him out of there without destabilizing the Morphing Grid further but if I keep trying then it's going to burn out and we'll be stuck. You might not be able to morph either."

Kim stepped away from her footprint and thought over the situation as carefully as she could. She had an idea, sort of... and it also meant finally dealing with their guests. "Zack, the guy. What did he tell you again?"

It took a moment for him to recall it, but when he did... "He said they were like us. And you know, Billy had an idea about that..."

"I think that's how they got into the ship. Because they're like us. They have some sort of coin or power or special stone. That's how the Green Ranger got in here, too. Her power coin is just like ours. But green. And evil." He stepped down from his footprint. "I have a solution to part of our problem. Remember last night when you and Jason had that fight? Well, I think I know how we can make sure they're telling the truth."

"What? How? They won't be getting hurt, will they?"

"No. It might not work if they lied already just to get out of letting us beat them up. But if they really are like us, then they might be able to link to the Morphing Grid like us. If Alpha can modify the hologram program to show us where they might link into the grid, like I showed you guys, then maybe we can access some kind of database or archive."

"That might actually work," Alpha said. "A lot of the ship can be interfaced with telepathically. If I adjust the parameters, limiting Grid access to only what directly comes from them, then they wouldn't even have to talk. The projector could just show us what they have in their heads."

It sounded good on paper but... Zack shook his head. "It might not work. If they've lied to themselves long enough they might believe it. And we wouldn't get an honest answer."

"But we have to try," Kim said. She gave a nod to Billy and Alpha. "You two get to work on that. Zack, come with me. We're going to the Pit."

"But you sent Trini-"

"And she's still not back with Jason yet. His problem is with me, so we'll settle it the way we settle everything else around here. **In. The. Pit.** "


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder:  
> Kim = 2017 movie version  
> Kimberly = Grid Links version (Son of Maligore; Hang up the Spandex)

"I think I've got the hang of this thing," she said, using the touch pad on the wall to scroll through the options. "At least, I think I have. Thank God for pictures."

"Give it a rest Kim," he said from the bench? Bed? Slab? Whatever it was, he as laying on it. There was another on the other side of the room where Kimberly had slept. Tommy had to admit that he felt a little relieved when the robot had come to get them and not one of the Rangers. Sure, it wasn't the same unit as back home. But it was still a familiar sight, one that he hadn't realized he had missed. Alpha 6 was great and all, and a very good conversationalist once that horrible personality chip and sound board was replaced. But still... You really couldn't replace your first Alpha unit. Sure, Alpha 5 wasn't HIS exactly. He was his own robot as far as Tommy was concerned. And a good friend in his earliest days as part of the team.

He smiled, staring up at the high ceiling as Kimberly continued to try and figure out the machine on the wall.

"You might be happy to just lay around until something happens but I'm not."

"If they wanted to hurt us, they'd have done it by now, Kim."

She muttered under her breath as she jabbed her fingers at the screen. A place in the wall next to the panel slid open and a shelf emerged. On it, a plate of... something.

Tommy turned his head to look. "Is that a shoe?"

"Well, at least it's fresh," she said with a laugh and tried again.

Since being escorted to this significantly better accommodation (though honestly anything was better than a supply closet) they had explored what they had believed was a cupboard but turned out to be a bathroom type situation. Had searched for any possible escape route and Kim, once again, focused on what could and could not be turned into a weapon before discovering there was a hidden panel in the wall. Which she had been messing with ever since she'd woken up.

As much as Tommy might have seemed like he was calm and collected about the entire situation his outward appearance was far from the truth. Inside he was absolutely terrified. Maybe they'd walked right into a trap? Maybe Kimberly might finally, truly snap and go into a full Maligorian Rage. Jason - Jason he could handle. Jason was predictable. He knew the signs, and knew how to engineer a situation with him to prevent a full scale meltdown. But Kim?... He had no idea what her warning signs were. He'd only ever seen her in a rage twice before, but he had never seen the beginning stages of it.

Eventually Kimberly managed to get something that almost looked like food out of the wall and took it over to him. "Sit up you lazy bum," she said when he didn't immediately move.

They ended up sitting facing one another, the plate between them as they cautiously picked at something that looked like a cross between a slab of meatloaf and a roast chicken breast. "Does this taste like fish to you?" he asked. She nodded.

"I'm almost afraid to try again. I might get a cow that clucks."

"Or the foot that goes with the fresh cooked shoe," Tommy said.

Kimberly sighed. "This is awful. I can't finish this."

"Hey, if you want to starve to death, that's fine with me. Just pretend Jase made it and power through. It's what I do when you cook."

"I'm not that bad of a cook."

Tommy looked down at the plate between them, then back up at her before raising his brows as if to say exactly what he was thinking. She frowned at him.

This is how Billy and Alpha found them ten minutes later, having a staring contest over a plate of really weirdly synthesized food from protein stores that were far too old to be safely eaten.

"If it kills them it's not my fault," Alpha quipped, drawing the attention of the two adults.

**o0o**

Trini and Zack had stood by long enough. When the Yellow Ranger finally managed to staunch the blood flow from her nose - Jason had caught her with a hard right hook - she and Zack got back in the pit to separate their two friends. "Enough already!" she shouted at them both.

Jason limping and Kim trying to cradle her dislocated arm.

"Look! None of us wanted this! But it had to be done and thank fuck Kim stepped in when she did because you've gone and lost your damn mind!"

"I haven't-"

"We're your friends, Jase. Your team. You'd die for us, but you won't talk to us," Trini said.

"There's nothing to talk about."

Zack, who'd remained surprisingly silent during the exchange stepped in, putting himself between Jason and the others. "Remember the last time you led us into a fight angry? Billy died. Yeah, we got him back but that was dumb luck. What happens the next time one of us gets killed because you won't get your head on straight? What if it's me? What if it's Billy again? Or Kim?"

"What am I? Chopped liver?" Trini said from somewhere behind him, her voice sounding stuffy from the the blood clot forming in her sinuses.

"This ain't forever. But you've got to let us help you deal with this. What did that bitch do to you that's got you so fucked up, man!?"

"They beat me. Starved me. Re-broke my leg and healed it over and over again!" Jason shouted, giving Zack a shove. "When THAT didn't get me to break they did something to my head," he continued, giving Zack another shove, advancing forward. "Made me live my worst nightmares. I had to watch. As everyone I loved died. Over and over again until I couldn't remember what was real and what wasn't!"

Kim gasped as Trini came forward to take Zack by the arm, pull him back and away from Jason.

"They took my power coin so I couldn't morph. So I couldn't heal as quickly on my own. I don't know where I was or how I even fucking got there. It smelled like dirt and death and fish rot. I can't get it out of my head. Every time I close my eyes there they are, laughing at me. Taunting me! So yeah, I'm pissed! I'm fucking mad as hell! I want to take Oliver and put her in the fucking ground! Followed by Rita and Zedd and the rest of the assholes that did this to me! Because if it happened to me, it can happen to all of you! And I won't let that happen! Not on my watch!"

**o0o**

They were led back to the main chamber by the boy in blue and the robot. Back to the place where they'd found this team's Alpha unit in pieces.

"Finally going to let us go home?" Kimberly asked, a hand on her hip as Tommy moved closer to the hologram in the center. Unlike the last time, it wasn't static. But the wall was still rippling. It was mildly unsettling.

The teenage boy shrugged and was about to say something when Tommy couldn't hold it in anymore. "This is where you access the Morphing Grid, isn't it? How does that work? Do these act as a teleportation system? Do you have to use trigger words to access your powers? Those zords were so fluid and responsive! What are your suits made of? I've never seen anything like that before! Is it nanotechnology or-"

Kimberly sighed. "Oh God... here we go..."

"Well actually..." Billy started, face alight with someone who actually wanted to talk about the mechanics of what they did and how things worked rather than the simple fact that they had magic super powers and a space ship.

"Is he always like this?" Alpha asked.

"Usually only about dinosaurs," she replied with a sigh. Her free hand going to her temple and rubbing small, soothing circles as she tried to stave off a headache. "Can you give it a rest Professor? The rest of the class stopped paying attention ages ago."

"Uh... sorry," he apologized, rubbing the back of his neck with an embarrassed, sheepish smile. "Maybe later?" he asked the teen genius hopefully. "I'd really like to compare notes. A lot of your tech is more advanced than anything we have back home."

"Where is home for you, Dr. and Mrs. Park?" Billy asked earnestly as Tommy moved to rejoin his friend away from the hologram and the footprints.

Kimberly turned her gaze to Tommy briefly, then gave a weak smile to Billy. "Beyond miles away from here," she said. "But sometimes it feels like we've never left at all."

"Well," Billy said brightly. "My dad used to say that if you ever missed home, all you had to do was pick up a phone and call your mom."

Kimberly's smile widened just a little. "It's a little too complicated for a phone call to fix," she said. "But... thank you. I'll definitely be calling my mother if we ever make it back."

Tommy put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze as he leaned in to speak softly to her, unaware that the clunky tin can could hear every word of their quiet exchange. When they were through, she slowly nodded and squared her shoulders as he took his hand away.

"Yo! No smoochin in the Command Center!" called a voice. "Unless it's with this face." The words were followed by a loud grunt as the voice's owner was elbowed in the side by the shorter girl in a bloodstained yellow top. As if sensing Billy's concern when he saw her, she shrugged. "Jason," she said as if that was all the explanation that was needed.

"He's not still mad, is he? Because if he's mad I can go talk to him. He listens to me. You know, I think it's mostly because he knows I can't understand and process his facial cues or his tone so getting mad at me is completely wasted energy on his part."

"Nah, don't worry about it. We'll... Kim will catch you up later on what you missed. Suffice to say, don't surprise him any time soon." She dabbed her sleeve to her nose and winced. "He does not pull his punches."

The two middle aged prisoner-guests exchanged a silent conversation of eyebrows and head tilts before Trini spoke again. "Who let these losers out anyway."

"Well if we're going to find out what we need to know," Billy said. "Then we need them here to do it. Do you think Kimberly and Jason will be long? If I'm late for dinner again my mom's gonna be real mad."

"Just call her dude. Tell her you're at my place helping me study," Zack said, sitting on one of the steps that led down into the recess of the footprints and consoles.

Billy shook his head quickly. "You know I don't feel right lying to my momma."

Zack shook his head and laughed. "And that's why you have Jason or Kim call her. She adores them."

They didn't have to wait long for the remaining two Rangers to turn up. Jason was limping and Kim favored her arm. A large bruise starting to form just beneath her shirt sleeve - just about the right size for a hand. But it was clear when they came in who was in charge. "Lets get this over with," Kim said, sparing a glance to their unwanted guests. "Okay, how do we do this?"

"Well it's-" Billy started but was interrupted by Kimberly. "What exactly is _this_? Normally interrogations are done with the whole good cop, bad cop kind of thing. With a table, a bare light bulb, and someone demanding a lawyer."

Tommy bit the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise as Billy just stared at her. "Ma'am," he said. "Are you trying to be funny or sarcastic because I don't get it."

"Don't worry about it," Kimberly muttered as Tommy successfully managed to keep his facial expressions under control. "Please, continue."

"Thank you," Billy said, immediately brightening back up. "It's simple. We have no way to know if you're telling the truth or not, but the Morphing Grid does. If you're telling the truth, we can find your energy signatures and the ship's matrix can show us the answers using the Grid. And if you're not telling the truth, then we won't find you on the grid and then we'll have a good reason to believe you're working with the Green Ranger."

Tommy glanced at Kimberly, who narrowed her eyes. He frowned and subtly shook his head.

"It's either this, or we do it my way," Jason said from the back of the group. "And you won't really like my way."

Kim nodded. "Trust me. You don't want that." she said.

"After seeing what he's done to the people he likes," Tommy said plainly, casting his hazel gaze to Trini before looking back at Kim. "I'll take your word for it." The teen in the red shirt tensed, his gaze hardening. Tommy knew he shouldn't have said it, but he needed to test the waters. Most of his interactions with him thus far had been as teacher and student. A completely different dynamic and setting. No true gauge of his personality, temperament, or ability. No test of where his buttons were, or how far he could be pushed.

"Tell us what you need us to do," Kimberly said in an attempt to cut the tension.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I enjoy torturing Jason, no matter what universe he's from.
> 
> Also, I know these chapters are super short compared to the other stories in this AU, but I'm posting them as they are finished because of space/memory issues with my laptop. I will be going back when it's over and merging some chapters together (similar to what I did with Hang Up the Spandex with each chapter subdivided into smaller chunks in one post). So if you come back to this story after it's finished and get confused how it could go from like, 20 or something to like, eight or ten, that's why. None of it's going to be lost, just condensed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder:  
> Kim = 2017 movie version  
> Kimberly = Grid Links AU version

Billy directed them where to stand. They were opposite one another, in front of the strange platforms that Alpha had called footprints. From what Tommy understood he was correct in thinking that they were physical connections to the Morphing Grid. When used together, the Rangers could open the Grid itself, which would result in the hologram in the center to expand outward, bathing the chamber in energy. What Billy and Alpha had hoped would happen was that the Grid's energy would react to them, and the Rangers links to the ship and the Grid would pull the answers they were looking for out in the form of a hologram.

At least, that was the theory.

"No matter what happens," Kimberly said, looking at Tommy. "Don't forget that it was your idea to come out here in the first place."

He gave her a nod. "I know," he said. "Weird stuff just happens to me."

"We're ready," Kimberly said firmly, looking past Tommy to the younger Pink Ranger.

She stepped up first, and Tommy could feel the surge before it could be seen flaring up behind him. One by one the Rangers took their places. "Okay everyone," Billy said when they were all in place. "Focus. Like we did that first time. All of us working together."

It wasn't until all of them were in place that Kimberly felt it. The pull of the Power. Billy's words of encouragement to his friends seemed to have done the trick. The hologram in the center, dividing the displaced veterans from one another glowed brighter and brighter before the Power exploded upwards and outwards. A kaleidoscope of stars. Five bright points in a constellation of color. Shining brightest of all. Pulsing with energy and life.

Tommy stood, looking all around with eyes wide in child-like wonder. "This is...."

"Beautiful..." Kimberly murmured, turning around in place as she watched what felt like an entire universe swirl around them. She felt a warmth in her heart, much like the feeling of when she morphed the first time. A sense of nostalgia settled over her - a sense of longing she had refused to acknowledge in herself for so long, for so many years since she gave her coin to Katherine and walked away. The sense of rightness she felt when she picked up her morpher from the briefcase in Tommy and Jason's back yard. The camaraderie of that night by the bonfire, the closeness even after so many years apart.

All of these things, these thoughts and feelings washed over her as she choked back a sob that made her realize she'd been crying.

Kimberly couldn't look at the teenagers as the familiar screech of her pterodactyl zord echoed in the chamber above them.

"Impossible..." she heard the girl who's name and power she shared, and felt eyes on her.

Across from her Tommy was not untouched by the Power the team had unleashed from the Grid. And as Kimberly turned her gaze to him now she saw what could only be described as a sort of Frankenstein of Rangers. A ghost image covered him, much as she imagined a pink one must be covering herself. Black. Red. White. All fighting and struggling for control. All forms he could never again assume. One burned out, another give away. Two lost to an enemy and the last.... offered up as sacrifice to the one that the man fought to keep buried.

She could see it written in the creases across his brow. In the tightness of his eyes and the grinding of his jaw. He fought against it, against the force exposing their biggest, most guarded secrets.

Hearing her own voice echoing around her in the stars she understood why. The Grid was pulling things from their mind, from their past, and showing it to the team that had opened it to them. If they saw...

"I can't," Tommy said. "I can't stop it."

"Then don't," Kimberly said, holding out her hand towards him, watching in her peripheral as the ghost image seemed to come to life, coating her arm in a dark pink mesh-like material far different from her old uniform. Hand gloved in a leather-like white glove as the rest seemed to form around her like a second skin. She felt the pressure of the suit as it formed, encasing her in a more durable version of the suit she was accustomed to. Sleeker.

"You have to let go," she said even as her own voice rang in the chamber, telling Tommy that he would always be one of them, no matter what.

It started with the sound of crashing waves as the warmth of the pink energy was snuffed out, overtaken by a roaring green fire as Tommy finally stopped fighting to hide it. Stopped trying to bury the truth and let it be ripped from him.

Jason staggered back, stepping off his footprint in an attempt to break the connection to the Grid. To slam it closed and shut it down the moment he saw the green fire burning through everything. The raw energy unleashed from the man standing in front of them. It felt familiar and wrong all at once.

Billy gasped as the space in the grid where each of their links to it shone brighter than all others suddenly burst with color. First the pink shone brighter, and brighter before the place where Green should have been, where it used to be and once again was exploded in the same moment their guest let go of his control.

He ignored the scenes playing out around them. The screams and the terror and the destruction. The haunting melodies of the Dragonzord summoned to battle. Instead he focused on the lightning-like strikes of green energy, weaving through the Grid and striking at different points, lighting them up with colors before continuing on it's way.

"He's... Alpha!" Kim cried out, "What the hell is going on?!"

"He's a Green Ranger!" Trini.

"He's a lot of things," Billy said in awe of the light show he was witnessing.

Alpha, if his old hardware had allowed, would have mirrored the awe Billy was expressing. But he had to settle for the slightly higher octave. "He's reactivating dead parts of the Morphing Grid! That's not possible!"

Kimberly watched in stunned fascination as everything began to change around them.

"What are you people?!" Zack exclaimed as he watched another point of light burst in a rainbow of color. Kimberly ran to her ex-boyfriend's side, trying to reach out to him but the green lightning struck out to shock her, forcing her back.

"Tommy! Tommy look at me! You're going to burn yourself out! You have to stop!"

"No! Not until I've fixed it! I have to fix the damage! I've almost got him!"

"Who, Tommy? Got who?"

He didn't answer. He didn't need to as Jason returned to his place, looking on as Zack started whooping in the air excitedly. "Look guys! Alpha! The cage! Try and focus in on the cage!"

"What cage?" Trini asked, her question lost in the roar of a Dragonzord so very different from the one they were used to. But still chilling to the bone.

Jason heard it first. He turned around, but did not leave his footprint again as the rippling wall began to move outward, the face trying to form for the first time since the attack. The words were broken.

"Zordon!" Alpha cried. "It's Zordon!"

The lights began to dim as the green wave of energy began to pull back. Back towards the cage, towards the point of light where Tommy had allowed his oldest and current Ranger form to link to this strange, beautiful Morphing Grid. The fire burning itself out as the lightning dissipated. Cloaking him, wrapping him in the ghost image of an altered morph. As the suit settled upon him like a new, thicker skin he dropped to his knees.

At last Kimberly could reach him. She pulled him to her before he could fully collapse on the floor. She cradled his head on her thighs, leaning over him as she wept. A recreation of an older pink tinged hologram hovering in the Grid before it, too, faded into nothingness.

When the first of the Rangers stepped away from the footprints and forcibly broke the connection and closing the Morphing Grid again, Zordon's face emerged fully from the wall. The sight before him a mixture of wonder, relief, and heartbreak.

"Rangers... What you've done... was reckless and dangerous," he said finally, then turned his attention to the older man and woman in the center of the footprints, beside the hologram projection of the grid - now twinkling brighter than ever before. "You don't belong here. And yet you have watched over them. Helped them when you could. Repaired the Morphing Grid that Rita fractured when she killed all the others."

Kimberly looked up only when she was satisfied that her only other friend in this God forsaken world was not dead, merely exhausted to the point of unconsciousness. "Where we come from," she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her gloved hand. "We never give up. Rangers give their all for each other," she said, reaching down to stroke Tommy's hair. "Even if they were the worst of us."

**o0o**

She didn't know why she was running.

She'd woken screaming, clutching at her chest and unable to breathe.

Fire. Smoke. Ash.

Burning plastic.

There was no time to think.

No time to figure out what or why or how.

She grabbed the only things she could think of.

Phone. Jacket. Shoes.

The trailer in the woods ablaze. The smell of burning plastic clinging to her clothes, to her hair.

Aunt Joan was dead. There was no doubt about that. It wasn't an explosion. She'd seen meth labs explode before. No, that was something else. Something worse. Something that might have come for her next. Or perhaps didn't even know she was there, asleep in the next room.

Tommie dropped one of her shoes behind her, but she dare not go back for it. She lost the other as she leapt across the creek like hell was on her heels.

When she finally stopped, she had come out the other side of the forest near the old mines. Heart racing, her mind clear for the first time in weeks, she pulled on her green coat and drew her arms in close, huddling just at the edge of the trees. Hiding in the darkness there. Barefoot, frightened, and whimpering in pain. Each breath of cool, fresh air like searing fire in her lungs as reality hit her square in the face.

Her father was dead. Killed by some... some woman. Some creature. Some vile thing that came to town. Dead on a fishing boat. Just doing his job.

Her mother was dead. Gold. Something about all the gold in the place being taken. A robbery?... No. Yes. Maybe? The serial killings.... right. She was a victim of the Gold Killer. Her dad's... her dad's gold teeth were taken.

A monster. Right. A gold monster. Downtown the day she had to move in with Aunt Joan. Aunt Joan who was now dead in a burning trailer... Aunt Joan who didn't care. Told her to earn her keep.

Tommie crouched against the base of a tree, her head snapping up when she heard the distant whistle of the train.

The pain hit again. The burning, searing pain that had taken hold of her in her sleep. Woken her before the flames could consume her, too.

Her pocket felt warm. Dirty fingers slipped into the folds of fabric, the pads grazing the disk hidden there. It was warm. Almost soothing. Calling to her to use it.... that voice...

No, it wasn't the disk calling to her. It was something else. Something that sent a chill down her spine and quelled the burning fire within, dousing it with the freezing waters of fear and dread once again.

"Please.... please no! No!" she cried into the dark as the red energy wrapped around her, summoning her back to the dungeon. She tried to grab hold of the tree, knowing it was futile even as she felt her body being taken. Her soul - her very being - suppressed again and replaced with that... that thing. That feral she-beast who reveled in the suffering of others and the blood of her enemies.

Even as she found herself no longer in the forest but in the presence of the skinless man, the King of the grotesque and all that is wicked and vile, she could feel herself slipping back into the fog. Back into the shadows of her own mind. And in her place came forth that... monster. The destroyer. The torturer. The murderer.

"You damaged one of my elite guard."

Tommie opened her mouth, but it was not her own words. It was the beast. The dreaded thing that had crept inside and made itself at home the moment she accepted that green disk. The serpent that coiled in her belly and wore her like a costume. "It had a shield. I wanted it," she said.

"You are not to act without my orders!" He raised his staff, the red energy crackling and shooting out towards her. On instinct the green armored suit was summoned out of the ether, the shining gold shield resting on her shoulders and covering her chest, protecting her heart and taking some of the edge off her punishment.

"Sire," she said once he released her from the shocks. She kept her head down, not out of respect or any form of shame. But out of courtesy as she bid her time. She opened her mouth to speak again, but was silenced as the skinless man rose from the throne of skulls.

"The energy fields on the planet below have been altered suddenly. Your plan to remove Zordon from the equation has failed," he said, gripping his staff tightly.

Tommie dropped down to one knee. "Sire, it may be possible that they discovered my re-established link to the Morphing Grid and found a way to counteract the influence of the Chaos Crystal in my host body's power coin. Give me a little more time and I-"

"SILENCE!" he roared. "Failure after failure. Your human side remains a weakness. If not for the fact it enables you to use the Power, I would have you slaughtered for your disobedience!"

"Yes, sire," she said, offering the only reply she knew she would be allowed.

"When the time is right, you will return to Earth with General Silverback. You will summon the Dragonzord and you will crush the Power Rangers! Fail me once more, and I will not be as merciful again."

All the while in the dark corners of her mind, the true Tommie Oliver screamed and fought and raged to try and reach the surface. To pull herself back out of the fog that had kept her subdued.

**o0o**

Tommy woke with a start on the slab in the room-turned-cell. His clothes were... well... he certainly didn't remember morphing. And he certainly didn't remember taking on another power. And that was the only explanation he had for why the mesh-like leather-textured plating had covered his body from neck to toe.

"Yeah..." Kimberly said from her bed-slab across the room. "So... apparently the Grid here altered our morphs when we were linked to it." She held up her arms, stretching them with a satisfied sigh. "I'm kind of digging this new shade of pink. Darker. More rugged and mature. Can't wait to see what the helmets look like."

"Why are we still in them?"

She shrugged, laying her arms back down before turning onto her side to face him. He turned to face her. "I uh... was hoping you'd know?" she said, voicing it more as a question rather than a statement.

"Me? Why?"

"Because like always, this is entirely your fault."

"My fault?"

"Yeah. You pretty much broke whatever Billy and Alpha had set up to keep our interaction with their Grid limited to just holographic influence. But no... You just had to go lighting the place up like damn fireworks show."

"I don't remember any of that," Tommy said as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

Kimberly mirrored his movement, but rather than dangle her legs off the side, she pulled them into sit cross legged. "Well, what DO you remember."

"Watching you... morph. Without using your morpher. At first it was this weird hologram. Like it was projected on you. And it looked normal. The bright pink, the helmet, the obnoxious white diamonds." She smiled softly at that. "But then it wasn't. It was.... well... that." He gestured towards her.

"What else?"

"It's stupid. There was a lot going on. Throw in the holograms pulling at memories and-"

"Only memories related to being a Ranger," she said softly. "Mine were rather straightforward. But yours... My God Tommy... Your entire Ranger career has been one mess after another. The fighting just never ends."

He scooted forward so that his feet could touch the floor. He leaned forward and held his face pressed to his gloved hands. The material - whatever it was - felt cool against his face as he drew in a deep breath. Kimberly got up only to move across the room and sit beside him. She draped an arm across his back and pulled him in close.

"I never realized... we were all just so happy to have you back on the team, none of us questioned whether or not Zordon asked you to do it."

He lifted his head, giving it a light shake as he sat up and drew a deep, stuffy breath. "Yeah... well... Have to admit, it was easier having someone who already knew what was going on than having to break in a new teammate."

"I'm sorry, Tommy. I've treated you unfairly for the last three years, and longer than that besides." She took her arm back, but rather than let it rest in her lap, she reached forward and took one of his hands and clasped it tightly in her own. "Honestly, I take back eighty-five percent of everything I've said about you while sitting with Jason drinking cheap boxed my neighbor would buy us."

He couldn't keep feeling sorry for himself after hearing that. "Only eighty-five?"

"Yeah. Let's face it, you're not perfect and we totally bonded over how much we hated you and your stupid hair." He shook his head with a small smile.

She let him off the hook for now. But she knew there was more he wasn't telling her. More that he remembered. How much still remained to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tommy and Kimberly's "new" morph suits are based on [these lovely works by digital artist Carlos Dattoli.](https://www.behance.net/gallery/38207099/Power-Rangers-Redesign) I highly encourage you all to check out his portfolio. He's got some more Power Rangers themed works, as well as original and other fandom fanarts there to check out.
> 
> if the link above doesn't work:  
> https://www.behance.net/gallery/38207099/Power-Rangers-Redesign


	9. Chapter 9

Kim was startled when there was a tap at her bedroom window. Followed by another. And a text.

She stared at her phone for a moment, a slow smile spread across her face as she stared at the little campfire emoji Zack had sent her. She sent a text back quickly before changing into something more comfortable and grabbed a hoodie.

She knew taking her car was out, otherwise her parents would find she was sneaking out and she really couldn't deal with those questions right now. Not after the huge revelations of the day.

She packed a few extra things before going to her window and throwing it open. Looking down she spotted the pebbles thrown up at her window and looked around for whomever threw them. Trini stood below, motioning for her to climb down.

Once she was down, she joined her friend, exchanging a tentative hug as her shoulder was still a little sore but the bruising was already beginning to fade. By morning, both her arm and Trini's face would be back to normal.

They walked in silence together down the sidewalk for a block before they found Mrs. Cranston's new minivan. Jason sat behind the wheel, with Billy riding shotgun. The smell of tacos wafting out of the open side door. "Get in," Jason said, watching her in the rear-view mirror, his tone no less authoritative than usual despite the changing dynamics of the team.

"Thought we all agreed to stay in tonight unless there was an attack," she said after climbing in and getting comfortable. Trini reached for the door and pulled it closed.

"Yeah, well, tell that to Mr. Punch-Out over there. He got Billy to call me, knowing I can't say no to him, because he doesn't want to be home tonight."

"Nightmares?" Kim asked. "Or the stuff today?"

"Mom came home for an hour. They screamed at each other for a while before she left again," he said, starting up the engine.

It didn't take long to make it back to the mines since they had a van. A van, Kim noticed that had a few supplies hastily thrown in the back for more than just a campfire. Jason pulled up next to the Jeep that belonged to the two still held on the ship. That was a whole bag of cats he still didn't want to consider. But he knew it was unavoidable at the fireside.

Jason and Billy carried the supplies up to their usual spot where they found the fire already going and Zack already sitting back and enjoying a bottle of coke. "Took you assholes long enough," he said when the two other boys set down the box that for once didn't carry homemade explosive devices, but instead camping gear. "Where's my favorite Crazy Girl?"

"She took half the food, dropped it into a giant vacuum bag, and went to feed the prisoners," Jason said as he opened the box and looked at the pieces of tent inside. "Billy, help me with this, will ya."

Kim shook her head and moved to sit next to Zack. She used her book-bag as a cushion and accepted the can of Sprite when he offered it. Water dripping, but the aluminum nice and cold to the touch. They watched, and laughed as the two boys tried to set up the tent without the instructions. Instructions, Billy remarked not long after, that were completely in German.

"Don't worry. I can read it," Billy had assured them. And then Jason broke the first tent pole in frustration.

**o0o**

They weren't prisoners exactly.

They could wander around the ship so long as the doors weren't locked. It was a very limited range of options. And they couldn't leave...

Yet.

Tommy was hopeful that meant they would be allowed to leave eventually.

The two of them were no longer clad in their new and improved Ranger suits, but rather some clothes they had fabricated using a panel similar to the food one in their cabin.

"These remind me a bit of the uniforms the Astros wear. But nicer," Kimberly said as she bounded out of the corridor into the main Command Center. She found Tommy sitting quietly, Zordon - and it was still so weird to associate a wall with the man rather than a large glowing tube, was silent. She was certain he was listening - Alpha had explained to her while Tommy was still sleeping that Zordon's essence was part of the ship's processing matrix now, and sustained by the Grid itself. Basically he WAS the ship. More or less.

"It's what the original crew wore. When we had a crew," Alpha said from his post. Ever since Zack had helped her carry Tommy back to their cell-cabin, Alpha had been analyzing the changes in their Morphing Grid. "Standard Eltarian military issue."

Kimberly stopped near the hologram of the Grid, watching the twinkling lights as the view changed periodically so that Alpha could scan another sector. "Eltar had a military? That's so weird to think about."

"Not really" Tommy said. The black jacket that went with the clothes he'd received from the replication machine had been on the steps beside him. Now he held it absently by the collar in one hand. It was so similar to her own. Black, with strange alien patches on the arms and chest. Details in dark green to match the shirt he wore. Her own in a sort of dark mulberry-pink variant she still wasn't entirely sold on. "Any planet at war needs an army to fight for it. We learned that the hard way."

"Yeah..." she said. "I guess we did," she said softly as Tommy joined her. He changed the subject, turning his attention back to the hologram.

"So... what was it that I was supposed to have done?"

"I can process information faster than every human mind on this planet combined and I still don't know," Alpha replied. "My best guess? Somehow your morphing energy sparked a chain reaction in the Grid, feeding energy into Ranger powers that were lost over 65 million years ago."

"Why didn't mine react the same way? We come from the same place. My power coin comes from the same set as his. My first one AND my second one."

"Second one?" It was then Zordon emerged from the wall. "You have held more than one Power?"

She nodded. "The whole team lost their powers when Ivan Ooze destroyed the Command Center. He nearly killed Zo- our mentor, too. So we were sent to seek out the Great Power on Phaedos. It was the only thing strong enough to save him and fight Ivan. I passed my powers on not long after that. Tommy stayed. He was the last of the original team to leave. How many change overs did you go through?"

"There was Green which was cursed and taken. White Tiger which was lost when Ivan attacked. Falcon Ninjetti but then Master Vile happened..." He started ticking them off on his fingers. "So there's three. Zeo Ranger 5. That was a red one."

"Don't forget Turbo Red. That was Muiranthias."

"Right... I usually don't count that one. It never felt right. It felt artificial."

"Well so was the White Tiger," Kimberly said quickly.

"No... not really. That one felt more natural. I don't think I was Turbo Red long enough to really bond with the power like I did with the others, even though we created that set of powers ourselves." He looked at his hand. Five powers in a little less than five years. "Wow..."

"And your stint in Reefside."

"Right. Black Dino... That's where I picked up invisibility."

"Six. You've had SIX Ranger identities?!" Alpha exclaimed in as much surprise as he could.

Tommy shrugged. It was just... something he was used to.

"That explains in part why the Grid reacted to strongly to you," Zordon said almost thoughtfully. "No one in the history of the Rangers has ever bonded to the Morphing Grid more than twice. And yet you carry within you six distinctly different bonds whether you count all of them or not. No living being is capable of absorbing that much power without damaging their physical forms beyond recognition or repair."

"Wait a minute..." Kimberly said, getting an idea. "No one in _this_ world is capable of it. But what if... because things are so fundamentally different in our world, our bodies can handle the load? Tommy's not the only one with more than two Grid Links in our world. There's Rocky. He took over from Jason, and then he became Ninjetti with us. Then... Zeo Ranger Three? And what about Kat! Pink Ninjetti, then Zeo Ranger One, and Turbo Pink!"

Tommy nodded enthusiastically. "Don't forget Adam. He's got four. Mastodon, Frog, Zeo Ranger Four, and Turbo Green... Maybe it's not just our physiology that's different... the powers are different, too. Just look at your original suit and this world's Pink Ranger. They have battle armor and we had thin nanotech spandex. The new suits are still light weight, and a little more breathable thanks to the mesh. But... still... very different."

"And... he's nerding out again. Great. You have fun with the wall," Kimberly said before her stomach growled. She started sniffing the air and turning towards the exit. "Does anyone else smell tacos?"

**o0o**

Trini was still dripping when she reached her team by the campfire. She didn't want to waste time morphing just to keep dry. Not after what she'd just overheard in the ship.

"You guys are not going to believe this!" she exclaimed as she wedged herself in between Zack and Billy. "So I went to go drop of some grub for the prisoners-"

"Guests," Billy corrected her. "They're Power Rangers, so they're guests. Not prisoners."

"Okay yeah sure. I didn't hear much but what I DID hear is that where they come from, Rangers can have more than one power. And they had a guy named Jason, too. But he left or whatever."

"Well it kind of makes sense, right?" Kim said. "Not the lots of powers thing but the Jason thing. That guy in there is a Green Ranger-"

"Who used to be evil," Zack added.

And Billy pointed out for the class, "But he isn't anymore."

"And his name is Tommy. And that woman is a Pink Ranger named Kim. It makes sense that the other people we saw in those holograms are Jason, Billy, Trini, and Zack."

"No way. The Black Ranger's name was Adam. I heard them talking about all the weird extra power stuff. He clearly said the guy's name was Adam."

"Okay, so no Zack. And our evil Green Ranger shops for bras at Victoria Secret," Jason said. "Small differences."

Zack thew his taco wrapper into the fire. "I do have a cousin named Adam but... we don't talk much. He's kind of a nerd."

"Maybe in their world they met an Adam instead of a Zack. Look, the point is they're literally _from another world_. They can have more than one power ranger power at a time, and even Zordon was surprised by it."

Jason stabbed at the fire with a stick. "So what exactly are we supposed to do with this?"

"I don't know," Trini said with a shrug, taking Zack's drink and having a rather large sip. More of a gulp. "But guys... He's a Green. He was evil. Now he's not. That means they were telling the truth. They know how to stop the Green Ranger! I bet Dr. Park was the one who kept stopping the Dragonzord, too!"

"So we stop Oliver. Then what, Trini? Because if we're supposed to be repeating some weird alternate history versions of us and what they did... No. Not after everything she's done. Not after what she did to me. I can't forgive that. Even if she were to walk up right now, not evil, no powers, and beg us to forgive her, I'll never do it." He threw the stick into the fire and got up, walking a little bit away to stretch his legs.

"I know," Trini said, looking to her friends. "It's not like I want her on the team or anything. But before all of this started she was just some bully with an attitude problem. When we found these coins we were together. Sure we didn't even know each other-"

"The jury is still out on whether I like any of you," Kim said as she picked at the hem of her shorts. "Except Billy of course."

"Thank you, Kimberly!"

"The point is we had each other. Sure it wasn't even two whole weeks trying to figure out this super hero thing."

"And I died."

"Yes, and Billy actually died before we finally got our shit together," Trini said. She lifted her gaze to follow Jason at the edge of their little campsite and spoke a little louder to make sure he could hear her. "But we all had a team to back us up. _Oliver didn't._ We don't know how she got Rita's coin. But she's been alone and dealing with these weird super powers _by herself_. Probably with only evil monsters to guide her through it. I know Zordon's not much more than a lying piece of shit stuck in the wall, _but at least he's not evil_."

Jason didn't come back to the fire, but he at least stopped pacing around so much.

Kim listened to her friend's impassioned words, and couldn't help but think back on the conversation she spied on when they kept their... guests... in the supply closet. Having watched the man's memories of how he became a Ranger, and his life afterwards through the holograms of the Morphing Grid, some of what they said made a lot more sense now. They were talking about Tommie... their Green Ranger. Talking about trying to save her...

By the time Kim started paying attention again, the conversation had moved along to other things. Homework. Tests. Trying to cram for class around the monster fights. And then there was Saturday detention on top of everything else. Jason eventually rejoined them, looking a lot less angry and much more tired.

Kim passed him a couple of tacos and a can of Sprite. Their fingers brushed, and Kim felt her cheeks warm. She blamed it on sitting too close to the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shameless plug for another fic... there's a companion piece to this one now called _**[While You've Been Gone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14539170)**_ that takes place in the main Grid Links universe about what's going on back at home with Jason while Tommy and Kim are missing.  
>  I'm going to be writing it much the same way I did with the first two stories - in tandem. Write a chapter of one, then a chapter of the other. That kind of thing.


	10. Chapter 10

After it was clear that the two middle-aged Rangers weren't a threat, they had to cut them loose. Not a prospect Jason was too thrilled about, but his team did remind him that the older Green Ranger could seize control of the Dragonzord should Oliver come out of hiding again.

Months passed, and with it the holidays. Sure, they had monster attacks pretty frequently, and once in a while the two extra Rangers would lend a hand as long as there weren't many people around. Something about there being another Green Ranger could cause more problems.

They didn't see Oliver again, but they heard plenty on the nightly news as an investigation was launched into an arson case out in the woods. There were many theories around school, too, about the green favoring bully. Everything from her murder to being kidnapped and turned into a sex slave in Mexico. More often than not though, the Rangers heard hushed whispers of drugs and arson.

These rumours were only strengthened when it came out that Joan Rush, the girl's adoptive aunt, had been making and dealing meth in her home for years.

A lot of what they heard over the course of the months did nothing to sway Jason's mind, but it did give Kim reason to pause and try to figure out what the girl's life must have been like before the Power Rangers had come to town. She was a new girl... Had started Angel Grove High after the first of Rita's murders. So right around the time they found the power coins. Right from the start Oliver had gained a reputation for fighting. For bullying. It was almost like the girl had decided right from the start to keep herself apart from others on purpose.

It was these thoughts, and the rumours flying around school that led her to the apartments where Zack had said the former teacher and librarian lived. She checked the number scribbled in pink ink on the back of her hand and drew a deep breath before getting out of her car.

"It's now or never," she said, pulling her black leather coat tight to keep the winter chill out. She reached back in to get her purse before locking her car and heading for the entrance.

She was surprised when Zack had reported back that he'd followed them to the upscale apartment block after a monster fight at the edge of town. After all, a teacher's salary didn't stretch very far. And his wife wasn't even a full librarian so there was no way she made enough to make up the difference. The entire ride up to the fifth floor - of seven - she kept trying to figure out what questions she wanted to ask the alternate Green Ranger first.

Kim knew he was nothing like their world's version. That much was obvious just by looking at him. But if there were enough similarities between their world and the one he came from... then maybe he might be able to help figure out why or how Oliver was so easily able to become evil.

She checked the back of her hand again, glancing at the numbers on the brass plates as she passed. When she found the right door, she hesitated then knocked. The door opened a few moments later and she was kind of surprised to see the man standing there in a black t-shirt. He'd always seemed to wear sleeves... and a lot of green...

"Well? Are you going to stand there all evening or are you going to come in?" he asked, stepping aside and gesturing for her to come in.

Kim nodded, brushed some hair from he face and looked down at the floor as she went inside. He closed the door as she continued on into the apartment. It was nice. It lacked personality, but here and there were little things that she supposed made the place feel a little like home.

"Nice place," she said as she came out of the front hallway into the living-room. The furniture was mismatched. A leather recliner and a large, overstuffed sofa. An old analog TV sat in an entertainment center that looked like it must have come from a charity shop. On the other shelves were books - mostly teacher's manuals.

Tommy came out of the corridor behind her, then went around so he could get to the kitchen. "Sit down," he said. "You want anything to drink? Haven't done much shopping lately so I'm afraid it's water, Red Bull, or some weird strawberry flavored coffee."

"I'll take the coffee, thanks," she said as she moved towards the entertainment center to get a better look at the things there. She found a couple of photographs in cheap dollar store frames. A lot of faces and people she didn't recognize, and some of them she'd only seen in a misty hologram. Though in the hologram a lot of them were much younger.

She listened to him in the kitchen. To the clatter of dishes as he washed a few cups. "Cream? Sugar?" he asked her.

"You said it was strawberry, right?" Kim asked. He hummed back at her. "Maybe a little bit of cream?" She heard the refrigerator door open and close. Then, seconds later, again. The tinkling of a metal spoon in porcelain. The soft taps of one cup, then another set on the table. The legs of a chair dragging across hardwood. Kim turned, one of the photographs still in hand, to see Tommy sitting at the table watching her curiously from over the rim of his cup.

"If you two have been stuck here for years, how'd you get pictures of your friends?"

"Our worlds might be different, but just like you we took our phones everywhere. A lot of those came off mine. Once I had my office set up I was able to pull the pictures. Make it feel kind of like home I guess."

She turned to set the picture back down and picked up another one. A beach in the background. Everyone was either half-dressed or clearly dressed for the summer. "Wow..." she said, putting it back down and turning to look at him again. "I mean, I can see why you always had long-sleeves on at school but," she said as she came over, commenting on the fact his arms from the wrists up were covered in ink. "Didn't think you were the type to have, well, all over."

He raised an eyebrow and set down his cup, then indicated for her to sit. She crossed the living room and passed the recliner. Hesitation stopped her, but only for a moment as she set her purse on the table and pulled out the chair in front of the steaming cup of coffee. "So," he said once she'd sat down. "Why are you here?"

"You don't seem all that surprised that I am."

"We know Zack followed us home. We've already had Billy come by. He brought us a container of chicken salad. That was... weird. Even for him."

"It's his way of saying sorry," Kim said. "He helped me prep for a math test and I still failed so he brought me chicken salad and said he should have worked harder to make sure I knew the material." She sipped her coffee. It was surprisingly sweet, and only a hint of coffee's natural bitterness despite the flavor and cream. "You get used to it," she said when she set her cup back down, wrapping both hands around the bright red mug.

"And you avoided the question. Why are you here, Kim?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it. She could feel his eyes on her, waiting in that annoyingly patient way he always had in class when he had called on a student to answer the questions he asked them. It was still difficult to process that this patient, kind man had been capable of inspiring such terror as they had seen in the holograms. That someone so... unbearably NICE turned out to have such a destructive streak in him. "I..." she started but found herself at a loss for words. But only for a moment. "I wanted to know more about the Green Ranger."

"I don't know if I can really help you with that, Kim. We're two entirely different people."

"I know," she said, brushing hair from her face again. "But... It can't just be a coincidence. If what you guys showed us is real-"

"It's real."

"Then there has to be a reason."

"Really?"

"Yes. I mean, I know you two have been stuck here since before I- I mean we- found those stupid coins or whatever. But why you two specifically."

Tommy shrugged. "I've been asking myself that for nearly three and a half years. Now that we've been watching things unfold I think I know part of the reason."

"Our Green Ranger problem."

"Yeah..."

Kim was quiet. Hands wrapped back around the red mug as she stared down into the creamy coffee. "Trini said something one night a while back."

"Yeah?"

"It's really stuck with me the last few months. I keep replaying how the gang all got together in my head and... we're all a bunch of screw ups. But somehow we were the ones that got picked. Two criminals, a loner, a guy that routinely blows up his locker - honestly I'm surprised Homeland Security hasn't been called on Billy yet."

Tommy hid his smirk behind his cup as he took a sip. He knew why, but that was something Zordon would either have to tell them or they'd figure it out on their own.

"Anyway... even Zack. You know he's been picked up for petty theft like three times already. And he spent a year in juvie when he was twelve. And then there's Trini... You know, none of us really know what her whole deal is. She moved around a lot, and had relationship issues, but... I mean, all five of us are the last people I'd have picked to save the world."

"And yet here you are. The Pink Power Ranger."

She nodded.

"And you want to know what happened to the Tommie Oliver of this world to make her into a psychotic killing machine."

"Yeah..."

Tommy leaned back in his chair and scratched at the stubble on his chin in thought. "In my world," he said after a long moment. "Billy's dad didn't die in the mines. His mom died. Seven years before we became Power Rangers she was on a plane. It went down. Did your parents get divorced?"

"They talked about it but... no. Not after my mom's car accident a few years ago. Jason's parents though... Yikes."

Tommy frowned as he made connections in his head. He compared what he knew in his world of his friends and their families to what he had observed and learned here. "Zack. What's his home life like?"

"His mom's sick. He won't say with what but... it's pretty serious. Trini sits with her sometimes so Zack can get away for a while."

"His dad?"

"No dad," Kim said softly. "Why? Is it the same where you came from?"

"Close enough... Zack's dad was the one that was sick. Cancer. His mom was around but worked so much she might as well not have been. Jason's mom was caught in the collateral damage of a zord fight and had memory problems until she died from complications," he said, his voice growing softer when he spoke about Jason's mom. Quickly he recovered, hoping the girl wasn't as observant as her older counterpart. "Kim's parents were the ones that got divorced."

"Oh... So it's possible that our green ranger is just... crazy then. Since you're so... normal."

"Maybe. Maybe not. If things are this similar, just happening to different people at different times, then it's possible I have more in common with this world's Tommie than we thought."

"Have you been watching the news lately? About the trailer fire out in the woods?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think she did it?"

"No... there's no point to it. If she's under a spell then what does the caster have to gain from killing her aunt? One that... given the conditions of the place I don't think the girl cared about in the first place. And if she's driven by the coin instead of a spell then again there's nothing to gain but more attention. But not the attention she would want under the circumstances."

"There's a difference?"

He nodded. "Unfortunately it's one of those things you have to experience to really grasp. I'll try to explain it the best I can," he said. "Refill?"

She looked down into her nearly empty cup. "Yes please. I have a feeling it's going to be a long evening."

**o0o**

Kimberly grabbed a bottle from the cooler she'd brought with her into the pit, cracking the cap and pouring the ice cold water over her head and face with a satisfied sigh of relief.

"You're pretty good for an old lady," he said from the sidelines. "You should fight Jason. He needs someone around that can knock some sense into him."

She recapped the bottle and dropped it back into the cooler to put in the trash later.

"What I don't get though," Zack said when she hooked the strap of the cooler over her shoulder and hoisted it with little effort despite how full it was. "Why a librarian?"

"Because there weren't any openings for a gym teacher," she said simply as she passed him, heading back into the ship. Zack followed, hanging back just enough to trail along but not close enough to be slapped if she took a notion.

"That I'd love to see."

"You'd just like to see me in short shorts and blowing a whistle at you," she said. "If I were your gym teacher you'd hate me."

"Nah. A pretty pair of legs like yours? I couldn't hate you if I tried." She stopped when he hurried around her in a cross section of corridors. He walked backwards, arms open as if to say the ball was in her court now. "Speaking of..." he said. "Do you ever go home anymore?"

She smirked at him and turned, heading towards the old crew cabins to scare up some clean clothes and a quick shower. "I don't know. You tell me. Tailed us pretty close."

"You saw me then? And here I was thinking I was stealthy."

Kimberly stopped again rolling her eyes and letting out a slow breath. "What do you want?"

"Nothing. Just bored. That and we don't get the weekly drama anymore. So, you two fighting again? Did you catch him with a younger woman? Oh! Or did he catch you-"

"Go home Zack."

"Come on! You gotta give me somethin to take back to Trini. Study hall is so boring now!"

Kimberly blinked at him a moment before shaking her head and chuckling. "Okay," she said. "You really want something juicy? Something that might just blow your mind?" She waved for him to come closer. When he did, she indicated he should lean in a bit more. When he was far too close into her personal space she smiled and whispered in his ear. Zack drew back with wide eyes and stared at her.

"No way."

She nodded, raising her brows suggestively. "Yes way. But-" she said, stopping him in his tracks when he turned to head back towards the main control chamber. "You can only tell Trini. No one else can know. And if he knew I told you, he'd probably kill me."

"I doubt that."

She smiled to herself as she watched him go. "That should keep them busy for a while," she said to herself as she went into one of the old cabins to clean up after her workout.

By the time she had come out to the command center, wearing another of the computer-made Eltarian uniforms, a slightly brighter shade of pink from the last time, Zack had already taken off and Kimberly settled in for a long night of hopefully nothing. It was unlikely the girl in green would reappear there, but they'd all agreed someone needed to be on the ship at all times, especially with Alpha in a less useful form. Tonight... was Kimberly's turn on the watch.

"He ran out of here like his feet were on fire," Alpha said. "What did you tell the kid?"

"Oh you saw that."

"Of course I saw that. The ship records everything."

"I told him the truth," she said with a shrug as she made herself comfortable on the steps. "That we're married. Just not to each other," she said with a laugh.

**o0o**

Jason hadn't expected his dad to be home before seven. Hell, he hadn't expected his dad home at all. It was just chance that they were home at the same time. He hadn't even noticed the man had come home until Billy looked up from his computer to greet the man in the doorway of the garage.

"Hey Mr. Scott!"

"Billy, right?"

"Yes sir, Mr. Scott," the boy replied enthusiastically. "Oh, this is my friend Trini-"

"Just Trini," she said, peering out from under the red hood of the truck, a dirty red rag in her hand. She glared at him before ducking back under the hood. "Jason! Stop moving the light!"

Mr. Scott frowned in concentration as he tried to figure out what exactly was going on in his garage. "Jason... I thought you decided to sell it for scrap-"

"Changed my mind," he said quickly.

"Jase! LIGHT!" Trini snapped at him again.

"Alright, fine! Jesus!" he snapped back, but did as he was told so she could see down into the engine.

"Yeah... this is above my pay grade man. I'll have to call my cousin over in Stone Canyon."

"How much will it cost?" Mr. Scott asked, concern evident in his voice. Since his wife left, there was no way they could manage the bills and repairs... that was why Jason had agreed to sell it. "We can't afford-"

"Bah!" Trini said, standing up straight and letting Jason turn off the light as she closed the hood. "Probably just the labor. Rocky owes me like, a whole shopping list of favors. If I wanted to be really scary I could try and get the work done for free. But Jase and I would have to help."


	11. Chapter 11

Armed with fresh cups of coffee and some snacks (if cold unfrosted Pop-tarts could be considered a snack), the two Rangers had settled in at the table. "So what's this about spells and the coins?"

"You don't think one of the Ranger powers is to build giant monsters out of gold, do you?"

"Honestly I don't know what to think. We've barely scratched the surface of what we can do-"

"And it's going to take years to completely master everything about them," he said. "But that's not what we're meant to be discussing." Kim sipped her coffee and picked at a pop-tart, allowing him to continue. "Being put under a spell is... It depends on the spell really. There's spells to eliminate free will, to suppress one's personality and thoughts. Some simply compel loyalty but still allow the victim some agency. Spells can also be strengthened by enchanted objects. Mine was a sword called the _Sword of Darkness_."

"Well isn't that name original," Kim quipped, getting a smile out of him.

"Yeah... Rita wasn't exactly the most creative. She usually left that to her monster maker Finster."

"So... how did you break free of the spells?"

"The first spell, the mind control... turns out it couldn't be sustained long term. After a few days I started showing signs of heightened aggression towards her other generals instead of just the Power Rangers. While I was fighting to get free in here," he said, tapping his head, "The power coin was also fighting against the control and against what little of the real me was left. Her spells were weakening so she gave me the sword which strengthened her control. The longer I had it and the more I used it the more control she had over me. Once Jason destroyed the sword the feedback from that broke the remaining spells which were already weakened."

"And just like that, you're one of the good guys," Kim said, sitting back in her chair and watching him. "After everything you did they just up and forgave you straight away."

"I wish it was that simple," he said, stirring his coffee absently. "That sounds like something right out of a kid's show. But the truth is it took a long time for me to earn their trust. Eventually we learned to work together and I had to prove myself time and time again. After all I did spend a week trying to kill them."

Kim's forehead creased as she tried to work something out. " _ **A week** **?**_... Everything the Grid showed us... happened _in a week_? You did more damage to a larger version of this city, in a week, than Oliver has done in _months_."

"I also attacked them every day without giving much time for them to rest and recover. And I had the luxury of anonymity for part of that time. Rita gave me an order, and I was quick to execute it. But with your green goblin I don't think it's Rita calling the shots. I think it's someone a lot worse."

"What could be worse than Rita?"

"If you want to sleep through tonight you really don't want to know."

**o0o**

When she wasn't pacing the command center, she was exploring the ship. Getting herself familiar with much of the winding corridors and the occasional replication machine. She was starting to recognize some of the ancient Eltarian language just from repetition through the images alongside it. Different weird foods. Clothing. Then...

"Bingo," she said as she found a screen with not food nor clothes but... weapons.

For the next few hours, after she learned the navigate what she had dubbed the Armory System, she searched through the inventory and selected various weapons. With each one she customized beyond just the colors. With each weapon she had 'created' she tested them to make sure they worked the way that they should.

By the time she had finished, Zordon's voice rumbled through the ship summoning her back to the main control room. Satisfied with her work, she tucked the weapons away for later. "Alpha, can you hear me?"

"Of course."

"Could you lock that door I just passed through? Just in case we get a visitor I don't want my hard work falling into the wrong hands."

"Good idea."

"Speaking of good ideas..." she said as she made her way back towards the command center. "I've got a few you and Billy could work on that might make things a little easier for the Rangers." She glanced at the pink and silver communicator on her wrist as she activated a door switch, heading back into the main areas of the ship.

**o0o**

"What about the coin? You said while you were trying to fight off the spells, the coin was trying to fight you AND the spells, too. Does that mean these things have a mind of their own?"

"They're not... they don't have sentience but they are infused with Power. Power that can, if strong enough, influence the user. Usually it just compels a Ranger to be the best version of themselves. And for some weird reason wear only their color. But mine was different from the others."

"Because it was Rita's."

"Actually... no. Each of the coins... it's like a small pocket dimension we can fit in our pockets."

"Pocketception."

He shook his head but couldn't stop the soft chuckle. "That was really bad."

She smiled despite the terrible joke. "Yeah, it was. But I had to. You walked right into it old man."

"Usually the coins are in their coin form. But to use the first zords the team would take their coins and open the pocket inside, releasing the crystals that would give them the ability to control them."

"Like a car key."

"Exactly."

"But not you."

"Not me. My weapon doubled as the control mechanism for my zord. Playing the right notes would summon it. Another set of right notes would command it in battle. I could drop into the cockpit and linking the dagger with the controls would let me pilot it manually."

"But your coin is also one of these pocket things. Your wife, the other me I guess, said your powers were from the same set as hers."

He frowned at her, cocking his head slightly. "How do you know that?"

"Well, your costumes are a little similar. Plus... Trini overheard you guys talking to Zordon and Alpha when she went to feed you guys."

"The mysterious hallway tacos."

"The tacos," she confirmed.

There wasn't much else to say about that then. "Well... you're right. My coin is from the same set. And it does have the same pocket dimension properties. Only my crystal isn't like the others. It's..."

**o0o**

"There you are!" Alpha's voice called over from where he worked by the hologram. "Did you know your green friend was overflowing with chronal energy?"

Kimberly practically skipped down the steps to the footprints, but she dare not step on one. "Chronal?"

"How can I dumb this down further... Time energy. Time travel. That kind of thing."

"Okay... no need to be rude tuna can," she said. "And no, I didn't."

"Any time someone travels in time, they pick up background radiation. Chronal energy. What your friend did to our grid wasn't just revitalize it. He hit a giant reset button."

"What does this mean?" she asked with a frown, studying the hologram.

"Ms. Hart," Zordon said, emerging slowly from the wall. "To your knowledge has your friend Tommy ever traveled through time?"

"No. I mean, no more than the rest of us. Some of our enemies would turn back time and make us kids. That happened to me once as a Ranger. Tommy twice."

"Can you remember any other time?" Alpha prompted.

"The team was sent 200 years into the past, and later Tommy had to go back with his evil clone to fight giant rats." She stopped to think, trying to find anything else that might explain the weird time energy. Then, though it's reliability could be debated since the information came from another tipsy night of complaining about Tommy and his stupid hair... "Back when I lived with Jase he told me about the time everyone was stuck in a time loop. Tommy seemed to be the only one to realize what was going on. I forget what he said it was though. Something to do with all the times his head's been messed with or something." She shrugged, then folded her arms across her chest. "He always has been sensitive to changes in the Grid. Do you think that has anything to do with this?"

"No. That's only because he's so interconnected. Every new power establishes a new link to the Morphing Grid," Alpha said. "That doesn't account for this... and neither does time loops."

"I don't know how else he would have been exposed to... time energy or whatever. He has spent a lot of time in pocket dimensions though. I mean, there was the dark dimension, and the one at the command center, too when he was given the White Light. And-"

"There it is again. The White Light. What is this White Light? There isn't a power like that on the Grid."

Kim sighed. "Honestly there wouldn't be. It was created specifically in reaction to the threat of Lord Zedd. When Tommy lost his powers the first time we were a man down. The strongest Ranger on the team suddenly... gone. Zordon tried to find a way to save his powers. He even used his own energies to recharge it for him until that too was useless."

She looked back to Zordon, an idea sparking in her mind's eye. "You're literally inside the Grid, right? Like, it's what's keeping you alive?"

"Yes."

"So basically when Tommy broke you out of whatever that was and changed your Morphing Grid, how did that affect you?"

"Much of the changes took place before I was freed."

"Couldn't you have come out of the grid once you were free? It was still open, even just for a few seconds."

The huge face became solemn. "No Ms. Hart. My life force is tied to the Red Coin. If I were to regain my physical form, Jason Scott will die as the coin reverts back to me."

That certainly was a lot to unpack in two simple sentences. Definitely something for her to take back to Tommy.

"I can only continue to exist because the Grid sustains my essence here in the ship. My connection to the power of the Red Ranger keeps me tethered to reality so to speak."

"I thought so... Zordon, my Zordon, wasn't dependent on the Grid to keep him alive, just to keep him stable. At least, I think that's how that worked. Billy explained it once but Trini wasn't around so I couldn't hope to understand it."

Zordon looked thoughtful. As thoughtful as a sentient wall could look.

"His essence, so to speak, was spread out. He existed in multiple dimensions and time periods at once. Somehow over 10,000 years Alpha found a way to contain him and draw him back together into some tube thing."

"And you said," Alpha interrupted, "That he used his own energies to recharge your friend's power coin?"

She nodded. "I think... I think maybe that might be the reason for the weird energy. Jase told me, after I got done yelling at Tommy for how stupid his decision was, that the curse that prevented him from using the power coin again was broken when the Z-wave hit."

"Z-wave?"

"That's not important. What is important, and it was just a theory Billy had but... Zordon, would it be possible in a situation like my Zordon's, to be able to see throughout time. Both past and future? And across multiple timelines? At least ones where you met the same fate?"

"It is plausible. There were sages on Eltar who believed that one's true essence is so large a single physical form cannot contain it. To become untethered to one reality could, if those beliefs had any basis in fact, give one access to a heightened plane of perception and existence. Connecting with one's other selves. I am contained to this world and this reality due to the Grid. But your mentor-"

"Might have glimpsed a potential future where Tommy would need to be flooded with this chronal stuff. Maybe he couldn't see what happened, is happening here, but something else in our timeline. Like maybe him being picked up in one reality, and dropped who knows where." She paused, thinking over what she'd just said. There were many secrets, she knew, that Zordon never told her team. But there were other things... How could Zordon know so much about the monsters they fought if Finster had only just created them that day? Even before Alpha 5 could run a scan for weaknesses, Zordon always seemed to have known what was needed to defeat them. Or how best to attack them. When the going got too tough suddenly there was a new zord or power already standing by ready to be called into battle. There's being prepared, and then there's... well... Zordon. She pushed this thought aside for the moment to spitball around with Tommy once she went back to the apartment. "There were other methods and ways to recharge his coin. We even offered to share our powers with him. We'd done it before to bring Zordon back ourselves once. And that was long before we held the Great Power. We knew it was possible. But Zordon insisted he do it himself..."

**o0o**

"So what makes that special from the others?"

"Your coins, and the coins of my original team, are made from the same types of crystal, just infused with different colors of the energy spectrum. It's what causes each of your suits to be a different color. The colors also tend to attach to certain personality traits. Normally Green would operate the same way. And on some teams it does. One of my teams had a different Green Ranger, but his powers came from the same place as the rest of us."

"But the one you have now doesn't come from the same place. So Tommie's-"

"Is from the same set but is an entirely different crystal. One that doesn't care for good or evil. Morality is subjective to someone under the influence of Green Chaos energy. While your crystals bring out the better, positive aspects of yourselves Tommie's, and mine, does the opposite. It's fueled by conflict and the unstable chaotic energies generated by anger, pride, and violence. If the person using a crystal infused with the Green Chaos energy doesn't have a strong enough will and mental discipline then its power will consume them."

"Like Rita."

Tommy nodded. "Like Rita," he agreed. "If she's under someone else's control then you have a chance of saving her."

"And if not? What do we do if this is just her, and the power coin is making her crazy like it did Rita?"

"Then... you take her coin and find a way to depower her."

"But these powers can't just be taken away. They're bound to us. You said yourself that they changed our physiology or something. Even without his coin Jason... He says he couldn't morph and heal as fast but he was still, you know, a Ranger. He could still feel this power we have."

"Our coins could be passed from person to person... but it sounds like yours act more like..." He stood so quickly his chair nearly fell to the floor. The flat of his palm slapped the table, causing Kim's head to snap up and her body to tense. "Why didn't I think of it before!"

"Think of what?"

"The crystals in your coins! The way that the powers have bound to your DNA!" He left the table in a hurry, disappearing deeper in the apartment. When he returned Kim was standing by the table looking thoroughly confused. "I need to get back to the ship and get another look at the Grid. There's something we've overlooked," he said as he pulled a green hoodie over his head, then tugged it down to cover his middle.

"Dr. Park, Tom, whatever you name actually is- what are you talking about?!"

Tommy stopped on his way to the front door, turning back to the girl who had left the table and come out to stand behind the recliner. "I think there's a way to depower the Green Ranger without killing her. But I have to get back to the Grid to be sure."

"I'll call the guys. We can open the Grid back up and-"

"No. Take advantage of your down time. Train, practice, or just catch up on your sleep. You don't know what's waiting around the next corner." He was in such a hurry to leave he just left her standing there in his apartment.

Only to come back, slightly sheepish a few moments later. "Uh.. There _is_ something you can do though... Could you give me a lift across town? She took the Jeep."


	12. Chapter 12

Every day since she had been caught attacking the Red Ranger on her own without orders, she had found herself in the training arena. Every day she fought. She honed her skills. She broke apart the rock men and utterly destroyed the grotesque creatures sent to stand before her. Sharpening her senses. Mastering the movements of the smaller, compact body. And at the end of each grueling session, he would come for her.

The beast of a man - no, not a man - a dog. An over-sized blue lapdog that walked on two legs and spoke like man. Her smaller size compared to him, even as she wore the green power armor, was a disadvantage in this place. He would always taunt her. Growl at her and goad her.

Her human host's anger was strong - but burned uncontrollably and was a disadvantage in battle. And now, as she was thrown back down to the filth and the dirt, she needed to find a new approach. A new way to best this beast of a man before he broke this body long before it could serve its true purpose.

A deep, mocking growl. He spat on her. "Get up, Green Ranger."

She tried to push herself up out of the dirt. Our of the blood-mixed mud. He stomped a silver booted foot against her back, causing her to fall back onto her belly and cry out in pain.

"I said get up, Green Ranger!" he barked as she tried again, and he stomped her back down.

_**"GET UP, GREEN RANGER!"** _

She did not attempt to get up. She waited. She had calculated. She rolled out of the way, the fire in her bones triggered by the near-constant healing and resetting of her bones as her Ranger power kept fighting to restore her. When the foot came down, she caught it, holding fast and firm before pushing back and upsetting the general's balance.

In the few seconds it took for her to get free she was on him as he hit the ground. The cracked face-plate of her armor completely retracting. Liquid gold mixed with the dark crimson of human blood oozing from the corner of her mouth and from her busted nose. Irises once a soft and warm, compassionate hazel were now angry green ringed in the gold of the infection in her blood.

The Dragon Dagger was in her hand with a mere thought, and the tip of the blade pressed against the beast's throat. "Call me Green Ranger one more time, Silverback, and I'll slit you from your hideous blue chin down to your dangly bits," she snarled even as the glittering, metallic blood dribbled onto the monster's face from her own.

"Your new body has its uses after all, brother... or are you a sister now?

The tip of the blade was pressed harder, just enough to break the skin. A bead of orange blood sizzled around the gold edging of the blade. "I did not choose this form. Would that I could shed it and be myself again."

The blade was removed, and she stood, spitting into the dirt near General Silverback. "I have proven my value, brother. When our master summons me again, you will know where to find me."

When Silverback had gone she retreated to the dungeon. To deepest corner of this dark dimension, and she waited in the dim torchlight for the voice. The voice that enraged the child inside but soothed the beast, that which was ever loyal to its true master.

"You've done well."

The Green Ranger, with bloodied face still exposed, knelt in the circle of dim torchlight. The gold-mixed crimson seemed to glimmer. The newly acquired golden shield across her chest and shoulders glistened in the light. "Forgive me my mutinous behavior, my Empress. This... meat shell fights me. Clouds my senses and sends me into a battle fury. It makes me weak and pathetic."

"It won't be much longer now. Once Zordon's precious children have been destroyed and the Zeo Crystal in my hands, not even our master will stand in our way. Even if he succeeds in capturing and corrupting the Red one." Long, withered fingers stretched out from the dark as the cold hand of death reached out to caress the warm, fleshy cheek of the girl. Patches of green scales that once had been armor had frozen and fused to sickly flesh when she had been sent adrift. A thumb smeared the blood along the cheek as the hand seemed to slither down, grasping the warrior's chin. "Play along with that old fool's whims, Goldar. But never forget that I am the one who freed you from your fleshy prison before. If you wish to taste that freedom again then the girl's will must be broken and crushed. For I will not have a Ranger under my power that will turn to bite the hand that feeds her the moment I remove you from her body."

"Yes, my Empress. As you command."

**o0o**

The entire drive to the mines, he sat in the passenger seat of her car with one of those small, fat little notebooks found in nearly every grocery store down the under-stocked office supplies aisle. A pen-light clamped between his teeth as he scratched away with his pen. Scribbling notations, or growling in frustration around the light sticking out of his mouth as he ripped out a sheet and tossed it into the back seat.

"Hey! Don't trash the car!"

He let go of the light long enough to apologize - which is more than she had ever gotten out of Zack for doing worse in her car - before he returned to his scribbles.

They were nearing the cut off road that would lead alongside the tracks to the lesser used entrance the Rangers tended to use most often. Easier to slip past security that way. "Writing a novel over there?"

"Cowthoolaythuns," he said, or rather tried to say around the light. He tapped his pen against his thigh, and she heard the click as it retracted back into the casing. He took the pen-light from his mouth and tried again. "Calculations. I'm not exactly on the same level as Billy when it comes to these things, but you learn a thing or two auditing extra classes at MIT."

"No fucking way you went to MIT."

"Language," he said, checking over his calculations again and again before he finally tucked the notebook away. "And yes, I did. There's a doctorate on my wall back home, well, my real home, to prove it."

"So you weren't just bullshitting everyone with that doctor stuff."

**o0o**

The trio sequestered themselves in Jason's room "studying". In reality, Jason lay stretched back on his bed, legs hanging off the side and tossing a football up in the air boredly. They were waiting for Sam Scott to finally crash so Jason could sneak out and head back to the ship to check in. He and Kim had reached a compromise in the end. When it came to the Green Ranger and the 2 assists, the Pink Ranger was in charge. Jason's experience with Tommie put him too close to the situation. He understood that now. Didn't like it or agree entirely, but his friends helped him to see reason.

Everything outside of that particular situation... still fell in Jason's wheelhouse.

Trini sat on the opposite end of Jason's bed with her phone, occasionally smirking. A few times Jason could swear she actually smiled. Neither Red nor Yellow Ranger paid much attention to the music playing softly from Jason's radio. Trini was into metal and Jason... just didn't care all that much for country.

But it helped Billy concentrate and focus. If it were anyone else, neither would have let it play. But since it was Billy... Well... even before the boy had literally given his life for his friends, they'd all come to the realization independently that no one could really, truly, say no to Billy about anything. He was just too... there wasn't exactly a single word anyone could really use other than to just throw his name in as an adjective.

The boy in question was sitting with his legs crossed in the floor, his laptop on an upturned milk crate that used to house some of Jason's past achievement trophies, and an apple juice box in his hand.

"Okay, I'm in!" he exclaimed suddenly as he put his juice box down.

Trini looked up from her phone to see Jason nearly smack himself in the face with his football. She covered her smile with her phone before looking past him to Billy in the floor. Jason sat up, holding the ball with both hands between his parted knees as he rested his elbows on his thighs. "In what, Billy?"

"Well," he started, the same way he started all of his lengthy explanations. Red and Yellow settled in for the long haul as Billy continued. "Ever since Trini pointed out that when we found our Power Ranger coins we were all together and had each other, but the Green Ranger didn't. So I was thinking about how the coins only want people who are worthy. Well, we're all screw ups. Big screw ups. I thought maybe if we looked into Tommie Oliver's background we could find out why the green one picked her. So I started with a regular background check but it was hard to do because she's had so many name changes."

"Name changes?" Jason asked, sitting up a bit straighter. "Like, her parents kept getting remarried or witness protection?"

Trini rolled her eyes. "Honestly Jase? Witness protection?"

"What? It's not like anyone actually knows anything about her," Jason countered. "She just shows up in school one day, not long after Rita shows up remember, and immediately gets a rep for being a loner bully that beats people up. I'd believe anything about her at this point."

Billy picked up his juice box again and took a drink. "She's been in and out of foster care for years," he said, using his free hand to call up some of the documents he found. "It says here that her birth parents and brother died in a fire on an Indian reservation when she was three. After that she went into the system and was adopted when she was five. The family moved around a lot for a few years with different names before getting caught in a drugs bust in Oklahoma. She was put back in foster care when she was eight. Adopted again when she was 11. That looks like where she got the name Oliver from."

"Okay... so what happened to the Olivers?"

"Dad was killed in Pittsburgh when Tommie was thirteen. Tommie and Mrs. Oliver moved back to California to stay with family until they got back on their feet."

Trini had her phone in her lap by now, looking from Billy to Jason so she could watch as he processed the information. Mostly it was to see if he could find somewhere in him to humanize their green-clad enemy.

"So she had a shitty childhood. Boo hoo," Jason said, falling backwards to lay across his bed again. "She's not the only person on Earth to have-"

"Her momma died at the jewelry store robbery," Billy said quietly as he compared names on one window to the names in a newspaper article in another open window. "And her step-daddy right before that, too."

"Her mom remarried?" Trini asked.

"Mmmhmm. High school sweetheart, Herman... Herman Walt."

"Herman Walt?.... Officer Walt?!" Jason exclaimed, this time having hit his face with the ball. He shot up and tossed the ball towards the closet. "That's the police officer that died on my dad's boat!"

"One of Rita's murders... One of her first murders," Trini said with a frown. "And her mom died in a jewelry store robbery?" Billy nodded. "Shit... wait. Billy, does it say anything about where Oliver was during that time?"

Billy went back a few tabs before he found the right one. "Right. Tommie Oliver was enrolled in a school called Silver Hills-"

" _ **Silver Hills Military Academy**_?!"

"You know it?"

"Yeah. My mom's threatened to send me there if I don't shape up. It's where parents send their kids when they can't handle them anymore. Place is full of worse fuck ups than we are."

Billy shrugged. "She seemed to be doing really well. Her grades were pretty good and she appears to be on the fast track to join the air force after graduation... At least, she was."

"But then her step-dad is killed and she gets brought back home... Only for her mom to be killed a short time later..." Jason said quietly. "No wonder she's evil..."

"But she might not stay that way," Billy added hopefully. "One of our new friends was an Evil Green Ranger once. Maybe with his help we can help Tommie."

"There's no helping her-"

"Jase-"

He got up off the bed, going for his bedroom door. "But that's not my call to make anymore," he said, acknowledging that in this case, in this specific situation, he wasn't in charge. It still stung like a son of a bitch, but he had learned that a good leader knows when they're not fit to lead. This was one of those times. "I'll see if dad's crashed yet," he said, leaving his two friends behind.

Alone in the Red Ranger's bedroom, Billy sighed and returned to his information search. Trini moved, crawling forward and stretching out on the bed to lay on her stomach now that Jason had gone. "Hey Billy," she said with a large smile.

Billy had only known her since they became Power Rangers, and he still wasn't very good with reading faces and tones and feelings. But he had learned that when Trini looked like she did right now, it usually didn't mean anything good. "What?"

"So before you gave us the Green Ranger's life story me and Zack have been texting. You'll never believe what the old lady told him tonight about her and Dr. Park..."

**o0o**

She could hear them long before she saw them. Or rather, him. The teenager walking along at his side had to periodically reach out to guide him out of the direct path of a pillar or wall, his nose buried in his notebook as he went over the formulas excitedly.

When they had reached the command center, both Alpha and Kimberly were standing facing the entrance, the human with her arms crossed over her chest and the robot just shaking it's head. "If you were any louder, Tommy, you'd wake the dead."

"Ha ha. Very funny," he said, finally looking up from his notebook. "I think I've figured some things out. But I need to use the Grid to double check a few things to be sure."

"You can't just open the Grid whenever you want," Alpha said as sternly as he could. Which wasn't much. "It's not a toy."

"No, I just need the hologram feature. I'd rather not experience that again any time soon, thanks."

"It's telepathic," Kim said. "Just step on one of the footprints and-"

Tommy eyed them warily. "I'd rather have a computer terminal if that's fine with you. Your Morphing Grid seemed to really like me and there's just things in my head that I really don't want to share."

"I have an idea," Kimberly said, heading for the hallway. "Just wait right here! I'll be back in a few minutes!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kept flip-flopping on what the evil influence on Tommie would be. Evil spell? Enchanted object? The coin itself? A little bit of everything?  
> So I settled on Goldar. Why? Because of the wonderful comic follow-up to the movie. If you haven't read it yet, then I definitely encourage you to buy it and to totally not go to websites like readcomiconline and to definitely not read it there.  
> Since I started writing this before reading that comic, it's AU from the comic (which as far as I know is considered "official canon" to the movie universe at this point in time), but the idea of the Goldar Dust really pushed me in the direction I ultimately chose and opened up some more possibilities for the villains.


	13. Chapter 13

 

When Kimberly returned a few minutes later, she held up one of two tablets. "Do you have any idea how useful those replication stations are? Imagine how much easier it would have been in the old days if we had one or two installed at the command center." She was light on her feet, practically skipping back towards her friend and younger counterpart. "I made two so we could take one home and see if it'll work off the ship." She offered one to Tommy. "Go on, it won't bite."

He looked at it warily before accepting it and turning to Alpha and Zordon. "So uh... this thing work like a regular tablet or..."

"That was excellent thinking. You've truly made yourself at home here it seems," Zordon said.

"Well someone had to try and figure stuff out. If I left it to Tommy he'd take ages doing everything the hard way."

"Prince Lexian's men used these when we captured Rita's monsters to study them."

"Will it run my calculations and use them to create some simulations?"

"Of course. That's what the science department used them for," Alpha said as Tommy searched for a power button. "It's there at the bottom. The little round one on the edge."

He nodded his thanks as he felt along the bottom, finding the button and pressing it. A blue light shot out of the top, sweeping over his face. "Uh... what-"

"It's scanning your brain so it knows what language to use. We uh... had a lot of non-Eltarians once Zordon started to put his team together."

Tommy nodded his understanding, and the girls left him to... whatever it was he was doing. With little else to do but wait around and guard the ship, Kimberly gave her younger counterpart a smile and kind word before departing back to the weapons store to work on her current project. She'd have to talk to Alpha later about perhaps copying her communicator and teleporter from their home world. Try and reverse engineer a set for these Rangers to make their lives just a little easier and a lot less wet when they came down.

Alpha left his work, instructing Kim and Tommy to shout if they needed him. He was off to try and work on salvaging more of his other body.

Kim, essentially left to her own devices, turned to Zordon as Tommy paced back and forth across the room, in his own little world as he worked on... well... whatever it was he'd been scribbling away at in the car on the way over.

"Something is troubling you, Kimberly-"

"Kim, please. There's two of us apparently and yeah..."

"Of course, I understand Kim," Zordon said.

Kim chewed on the inside of her right cheek as she tossed the questions around in her head. Eventually, she settled on one. "Why did Rita turn bad? If she was one of your crew - one of your teammates, then what caused her to betray you?"

"Rita was... my greatest mistake," Zordon said. "I failed to see what the Power did to her and in my foolishness refused to accept the truth."

"What truth?"

"That she was lost long before she stole the Green Coin."

"You mean," Kim started, frowning in thought. "You didn't choose her? She stole the power coin from you?"

The large face closed its eyes, lips parted as he let out a simulated sigh. "I should never have brought her on board the ship when we made our way to Kirason. Just setting eyes on the coins when they were first cut had changed her. She envied the power contained within them, and when I began to choose those who would wield them she was angry that despite her hard work and training I did not choose her."

She could still hear Rita's voice screaming at the Rangers, screaming about how Zordon could not judge her. That she would prove that she was worthy after all. Quietly she looked to the man with the tablet. He had ceased his pacing and had sat on a step, his fat little notebook open on one knee while he balanced the tablet on the other, imputing his calculations with his fingers to the touch screen. He had spoken just that evening with her so openly about what had been done to him in his own Rita's pursuit of ultimate power. Of the spells and the loss of his own free agency.

Could such a thing have happened to Rita all those eons ago?

Is that what had happened the Oliver girl?

Maybe... if certain events, like the other Green Ranger had said, happened but to different people in his world, could not the same thing have happened to Rita that happened to him?

"Zordon," she said at last, looking away from the man and back to their mentor. "Was Rita one of the non-Eltarians on your ship's crew?"

"Yes."

"She looked almost human."

"Her mother was Eltarian, but we never discovered who. Records from that time were... difficult. My world was at war with a malevolent creature for many centuries before Rita was born."

From the opposite side of the room, their third wheel spoke up. "Even in my world she looked nothing like her family. Her father was a mutant and her brother was pretty powerful for an idiot skeleton."

"You know of the House of Vile?"

"Know of it? We fought them. Even faced Master Vile himself a few times after Zedd's plans kept failing." He stood up, stretching. She could swear she heard his back pop. "I think I'm ready. Can this interface with the Grid hologram?"

"Of course," Zordon said. After a few seconds. "It is done."

Tommy fiddled with the controls a moment before a 3D image of Earth appeared. "This is what happened in my world," he said, and Kim watched as an asteroid slammed into Earth near Mexico. "In my world I was a paleontologist. My second dig while in college was to this site, here." The hologram closed in, showing a crater. "At this site, I found 3 stones that contained what I now know is morphing energy. At the time I just had this weird sort of sense that they were important."

"Okay... I don't see what this has to do with de-powering the Green Ranger," Kim said sarcastically.

"I'm getting to that," he said, an the hologram reset, showing Earth again. "The thing about these stones, I called them Dino Gems, are that they imbued the human body with special abilities outside of the normal morphing powers. Normal Ranger abilities are only enhancements on the natural state of the one who possesses it. Enhanced strength, stamina, agility, healing, and depending on how many different Ranger powers a person has had, a hyper-awareness of morphological entities and energies. But these stones granted the Rangers they bonded to extra abilities outside the norm and bound to the users DNA, making permanent changes."

He tapped the tablet. "This is what happened in your world," he said, and again, an asteroid collided with Earth, but only after something shot at it from the planet below, causing it to change course. The hologram then closed in on-

"That's Angel Grove!... Er... Well, it would be," Kim said. "One day."

"It was necessary. Rita had all but won. The Zeo Crystal was exposed and I was dying. There was no other way to protect the crystal."

Tommy nodded, looking solemn. "I was telling Kim earlier this evening about our power coins, and how they differ from yours. Ours are shielded and encased in metal. Yours are not. You must have had to use them before they could be finished. Which means that the normal changes for any Ranger were amplified for you and for the current team. But it also means that the coins were able to absorb more energy," he said. "The asteroid contained five Dino Gems. What happens when you smash an unstoppable force into an immovable object?"

"You believe the power coins underwent transmutation?"

He nodded. "I do. Or at the very least absorbed the compatible energies of the Dino Gems, making them stronger, and in turn making anyone who held them afterwards more powerful as a result. Green Chaos Crystals do the same thing. Assuming her coin was caught in the blast and also absorbed some of the energy of a Dino Gem, I may be able to reverse it, weakening the Green Ranger's powers and any influence it has on her."

"But where would we even find these gems? If they were in the asteroid that crashed here and buried Zordon's ship-"

"Our best chance would be to locate the primary gems. Red, blue, and yellow. for some reason those colors are always at the core of a team. So it's likely they'll be together, just as in my world. The other two... could be anywhere in the blast radius. Even at sea." Tommy said. "The only problem is that if I'm right, then they won't have energies I can sense. So we would have to try and find another way to locate them."

"If you think you can pull this off, then I think we can help you find them."

"How?"

"Billy," Kim said confidently. "He knows these mines better than anyone, and he's the one that found the Zeo Crystal when no one else could. He'll help you find these Dino gems."

Tommy returned to his calculations, throwing ideas up on the hologram to run them in simulations to help test his ideas.

"Are you sure this is the course of action you wish to pursue, Kim? The Green Ranger is a dangerous enemy capable of great evil-"

"I won't give up on her, Zordon. If there is even a slight chance we can save her and stop this cycle of evil Rangers, then we have to try."

"You understand that she will resist any attempts to help her. She will likely kill your entire team. Just as Rita before her."

"It's the right decision," Kim said. "I don't know what her life was like that led her to this point. For all I know Tommie's a crazy lunatic that just loves beating people up. But she deserves a chance to make things right, just like we had."

The chamber was quiet, save for the soft whir of the hologram behind her and the low rumble of the ship's permanent stand-by mode.

After a long silence, Zordon finally spoke again. "Each coin seeks someone worthy enough to wield it. Someone who carries within them the core of that coin's Power. I have questioned whether or not the impact had damaged them, making them... unreliable."

"And now?"

"As with Jason it has taken time to see the qualities which make you a Ranger come to the surface. I am not disappointed in the choice the Pink coin has made. You hold onto hope when there is none left to be found. Foolish and naiive I may believe it is, without hope you stand no chance against the threats that will come down on this world. Hold onto it tightly, Kimberly Hart."

Tommy smiled knowingly to himself as he continued to work.

**o0o**

Days passed before Tommy had finished building his plan and working out the kinks. In that time he had enlisted the help of Billy just as Kim had suggested, and explained to the boy the problems he faced to constructing a device with which to utilize the Dino gems.

Chief among them... locating the things. Since he was certain they wouldn't have a charge he could sense he couldn't rely on his luck or whatever it was that had guided him the first time.

In the meantime Alpha had made some progress on rebuilding his old body. And Kimberly had put the finishing touches on her project.

At the moment she looked up from the ledge where she'd placed the weapons in the Pit, smiling as four of the five Rangers approached. "Good, you're here. I've got something to give you an edge against the Green Ranger."

Zack brightened, eyeing the ledge. "We get weapons!"

Jason was wary. "I'm not too sure about this-"

"Says the only one with an actual weapon," Zack responded, then hissed when Kimberly smacked his hand away from the blasters. "Hey!"

"Not yet," she said.

Trini had spotted a pair of knives with dark yellow handles, resting next to what looked like a battle axe. "You really expect us to use these things?"

"Yes," she said.

Jason examined the selection carefully, noticing there were five gun-like weapons, but nothing larger than that for himself. "Where did they come from?"

"I've been exploring the ship and messing around with the computers," Kimberly replied. "I've found food machines which I really don't advise anyone trying. Ones for making clothes, but all it seems to do is make uniforms in different colors. And another I call the Armory. I've been playing around with it to see what it has and what can be modified. I've tried to tailor each weapon to your strengths based on how I've seen you fight, and color scheme of course." She stepped aside. "Take the blasters first and practice with those. They're trickier than you'd think," she said as Zack immediately reached for one now that he knew he was allowed. Trini followed suit. "Right now they're set in safe mode so you don't accidentally kill each other."

"So how do we take them out of safe mode?" Kim asked.

"I'll let you know when you're ready," Kimberly said, crossing her arms with a smirk. "Run simulation twenty five," she said.

_**"It goes up to 25?!"** _

Kimberly was still smirking as the holo trainer started, immediately confronting the four Rangers with a heck of a lot more putties than most of the Pit trainer programs would dole out at a time. "It does now."

**o0o**

The two were exploring a mine that had fallen into disuse over the years, believing it far safer to be morphed to ensure they didn't breathe anything in that they shouldn't and also that they would survive should they get caught up in a collapse.

A map of the mines and lights built into the Blue Ranger's helmet helped to guide the way. Tommy, on the other hand, had to rely solely on night vision. So turning to and looking directly to his companion on this exploration of the caves and mines wasn't the best idea and was something he avoided.

"So how long have you and Ms. Park been ruining each other's marriages?"

"What?" Tommy said, nearly turning to look at the teenager with the home-brew resonator device in his hand. "Look, let's just keep our minds on the task at hand. We still have a lot of ground to cover, Billy."

"Well," he said, sweeping the device over a few places of the mine wall that reflected the light from his helmet, checking to see if the frequency put off by the device would cause the minerals in the walls to line up with the resonant frequencies they were looking for. "It does explain why you two fight so much. I don't think I've ever seen two people fight as much as you and Ms. Park do." He paused, then frowned to himself. "Except Jason's mom and dad." He hurried to catch up to the older Ranger. "We know you're not married to each other. Trini said that Zack said that SHE said-"

"Of course..." Tommy sighed. "Fine, you caught us. We're not married to each other. And if anyone's marriage is ruined, it's hers not mine."

"That's awful."

"That's just how it is. My... spouse is a Ranger. Knows the dangers this life brings with it. If I get back... _when_ I get back, it will be an adjustment but we'll be fine. Kim's husband doesn't know about her double life. Wouldn't remember half an hour later if she'd told him. I just hope that all this time we've been stuck here, our friends have been looking after him for her and that she's got a home and a life to get back to."

He stopped, holding up a hand for Billy to stop as well. "There's a fork ahead. Which way do you think would be the better option?" Tommy moved out of the way, keeping his head turned away from Billy's face so he wouldn't blind himself. The teen glanced one way, then the other. "I think... right. If your theory is correct then what we're looking for should be closer to where the core of the asteroid would most likely have embedded into the earth. The right way, I think, goes deeper while the left circles back to a higher point in the mine."

"You _think_?"

"I've never been this deep in the mines before," he admitted.

"Great..." Tommy mumbled, putting his helmeted head in his hand and closing his eyes with a sigh. "We're going to get lost down here."

"No we won't. I have an eidetic memory," Billy said. "I remember everything. Even the answers to the last pop quiz you gave the class before leaving the school."

"Well... that's... strangely convenient. My Billy's smart but, I have to admit, he doesn't have the memory thing going for him."

Billy shrugged as he signaled for Tommy to lead the way, searching out more places in the walls of the mines and caves for Billy to scan. "I think I'd like to meet the Billy from your world."

"Maybe someday you will," Tommy replied, then softly added, "If Kim and I ever make it back home..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a bit. Kid just got out of school last Friday so we've been spending time prepping for summer and adjusting to no school during the week.  
> And I've been screaming at my hands to finish this chapter so... Yeah. Hope you enjoyed it!  
> We'll get out of the geeky technical stuff for a while starting with the next chapter


End file.
